Islamabad, March 6
Reports have surfaced this week that suggest that Saudi terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden successfully avoided being caught by Pakistani troops.A governor of a district in the neighbouring Afghanistan was quoted by ‘The News’ as telling the BBC that Afghan intelligence had been alerted about this incident.
Haji Abdullah, Governor of Pachir-Agam district in Nangarhar province, said on Wednesday that he had met a former member of the Taliban who had received a fax referring to “the Sheikh”, a term often used for Bin Laden by his supporters.
The fax reportedly said “the Sheikh” was alive and well and that he had escaped a recent attempt by Pakistani forces to catch him on their side of the border.
He, however, rejected reports that American forces had zeroed their sights on the Tora Bora hills, which overlook his district, in their search for the Saudi dissident.
Osama, if alive, has been on the run since October 2001, a month after his Al-Qaida allegedly launched aerial attacks across the USA. US forces and Pakistani troops have been in active pursuit of the remnants of the Al-Qaida and the Taliban since then. —
ANI
