Bin Laden is alive and hiding in Afghanistan, insists Musharraf

[spindrifter]

The Times September 28, 2006

By James Bone

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF, dismissing a French intelligence report that Osama bin Laden had died of typhoid, said yesterday that he believed the al-Qaeda leader to be hiding in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, possibly with the help of an Afghan warlord.

“It’s not a hunch,” the Pakistani President told The Times. “Kunar province borders on Bajaur Agency. We know there are some pockets of al-Qaeda in Bajaur Agency. We have set a good intelligence organisation. We have moved some army elements. We did strike them twice there. We located and killed a number of them.”

General Musharraf has been in a verbal duel with President Karzai over Pakistan’s role in the War on Terror, with the Afghan leader accusing it of allowing cross-border operations by Taleban from tribal areas. The two leaders held a contentious meeting over dinner hosted by President Bush at the White House last night. They did not shake hands.

Interviewed at his hotel in New York, General Musharraf said he believed that bin Laden was in Afghanistan, and suggested a possible link with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Afghan warlord. Brandishing a UN report highlighted with coloured markers, the President read out its finding that the insurgency in Afghanistan “is being conducted mostly by
Afghans operating inside Afghanistan’s borders”.

<more>

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2378688,00.html

[dflprincess]

1. I've long been of the opinion that he shaved off his beard and has

been hiding at the Mayo Clinic getting his kidney disease treated. Lots of Saudis go there.

[leesa]

2. Bush: "And if you don't keep saying that, we'll bomb you back to the

stone age." Musharraf knows very well OBL died in December 2001 of renal failure.