Bin Laden Cornered In Pakistan's Northwest: Paper
LONDON, February 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - U.S. and British special forces have cornered Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in a mountainous area in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, a British paper reported Sunday, February 22.
Quoting a “U.S. intelligence source”, British daily Sunday Express said Bin Laden and “up to 50 fanatical henchmen” were inside an area 16 kilometers (10 miles) wide and deep “north of the town of Khanozai and the city of Quetta”, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“He is boxed in,” the unidentified source was quoted by the paper as saying, adding that U.S. special forces were “absolutely confident” that he could not escape.
According to the source, Bin Laden moved into the area, “in the desolate Toba Kakar mountains”, about one month ago from another area 240 kilometers to the south.
Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is believed to be with Bin Laden, according to the report.
The area is under surveillance from a geostationary spy satellite while U.S and British special forces await orders to move in.
‘Geographers’
The Sunday Express said Bin Laden's whereabouts had been discovered from a “combination of CIA paramilitaries and special forces, plus image analysis by geographers and soil experts”.
“They studied the background in bin Laden's last video and matched it to rocks in the Toba Kakar region,” the newspaper said.
“A two-man special forces surveillance unit infiltrated the area,” it said, adding that they picked up their first clues that Bin Laden was in the area within a week.
“Other teams then slipped in,” the paper quoted its source as saying. “To avoid any alert, helicopters were not used.”
The Sunday Express said it was also told in London by a “senior Republican close to the White House and the Pentagon” this past week that Bin Laden had been located.
“They have found Bin Laden,” the source -- described as an “intimate” of the family of U.S. President George W. Bush -- was quoted as saying.
“They now know where he is within a manageable area which can be watched and controlled.”
On Thursday, February 19, General Richard Meyers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces were engaged in “intense” efforts to capture bin Laden, but held back from saying where he might be hiding.
“There are areas where we think it is most likely he is, and they remain the same,” said Meyers, who was speaking to reporters in Washington.
“They haven't changed in months,” said Myers.
Asked whether the Al-Qaeda leader was believed to be in Pakistan, the general replied: “Don't know that. We think in that border region somewhere. We don't know where it is precisely.”
‘Nonsense’
But a Pakistani political expert dismissed as “nonsense” U.S. claims that rocks and soil helped in locating the whereabouts of Bin Laden.
Speaking to IslamOnline.net over the phone from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, the expert, who requested anonymity, said Bin Laden keeps moving from one place to another.
However, he said it is very much likely that Bin Laden is hiding along the Pakistani borders with Afghanistan, which stretch some 1200km, adding that his hiding could be located via satellites and Taliban’s opponents.
The expert also said it is impossible to place the drawn-out borders under close scrutiny either from the Pakistani army or Afghan authorities.
He added that Pakistan had denied reports that U.S. Marines were operating in a Pakistani soil, noting that U.S. troops were not allowed into the country at least publicly to head off a public uprising.
The U.S. accuses Al-Qaeda of being behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001.
More recently, the U.S. administration has also accused it of supporting attacks on U.S. forces occupying Iraq.
The last known video tape from Bin Laden was aired in September 2003 by the Arabic all-news television station Aljazeera. Three audio tapes followed, in October, December 2003 and January 2004.
In his last audio tape on January 5, Bin Laden warned that the United States would go on occupying, unless it was stopped, Saudi Arabia and the entire oil-rich Gulf region after Iraq.
Bin Laden's former chauffeur is a prisoner at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Salim Ahmad Hamdan, a 34-year-old Yemeni, worked in Afghanistan for Bin Laden from 1997 until the U.S.-led invasion of the country in October 2001.
His military attorney, Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, said that Hamdan adamantly denied that he was ever a member of Al-Qaeda or engaged in any terrorist attack.
He said Hamdan worked for Bin Laden solely to support for himself and his wife and two children.
He was arrested by Afghan forces and turned over to U.S. forces in late 2001, Swift said.