M A I N   N E W S

Clinton had ‘given order’ to kill Laden

Washington, September 23
Former US President Bill Clinton has admitted that he ordered the capture and possible assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Mr Clinton told reporters in New York that he gave the order for the operation following the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dares Salaam — attacks for which Bin Laden has since been indicted in the USA.

“I authorised the arrest and if necessary, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and we actually made contact with a group inside Afghanistan to do it. They were unsuccessful,” he added. AFP

Did Laden pay money to Sharif?

New Delhi, September 23
Mr Hamid Mir, a journalist who wrote the biography of international terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, is yet to find an answer to whether the world’s most wanted man had paid millions of dirhams to exiled Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif.

Mr Mir, in an article “My Last Question” published in Pakistan’s reputed daily ‘The Friday Times’, said “as I was writing the last chapter of the book (Bin Laden’s biography), Mr Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, an ex-Senator and leader of the Jamiat-e-Ulma-e-Islam, revealed to me that Osama had given millions of dirhams to Mr Nawaz Sharif.”

Mr Mir said Mr Ahmed had conveyed to him that the money had been paid to Mr Sharif for promotion of jehad in Pakistan if he became the Prime Minister.

“I delayed the book and sent my last question to Osama. I wanted to know if it was true that he had given money to Mr Sharif and where had this money gone,” Mr Mir said, adding that he never received the answer for this question. PTI