New Delhi, September 16
The world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, is alive, has taken shelter with tribesmen in North Waziristan, and is constantly shifting base during nights along a 250-mile stretch of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to latest Indian classified reports.
The reports, which have filtered through diplomatic channels, also say that 3,000 to 4,000 Al-Qaida militants had escaped from Afghanistan when fighting in Tora Bora mountains was at its peak late last year.
The Al-Qaida cadres managed to escape largely because of two reasons: (i) the USA did not commit its own ground troops for the Tora Bora offensive for fear of body bags, (ii) and the USA and the UK relied too heavily on local anti-Taliban warlords.
Intelligence officers from the USA and the UK now admit that the military operations in Tora Bora should have continued with more forces from the allied countries where thousands of foreign militants were trapped after the collapse of the Taliban.
Latest reports indicate that now these terrorists are settled in Northern Areas in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, North and South Waziristan, Baluchistan and near Zahidan in Iran and, what is worse, are regrouping.
According to classified reports - based, among other things, on inputs from Pakistani and Afghanistani intelligence — the assumption driving the ongoing manhunt is that Bin Laden and his top lieutenant Ayman al Zawahiri, widely believed to be Bin Laden’s second in command, are alive.
These reports have spoken of Bin Laden and an entourage moving more than once since the American bombing of Tora Bora. The Americans are well aware of Bin Laden’s tactics to elude their dragnet: by shifting base every second night, particularly cloudy nights when spy satellites failed to spot them.
