Posted on 10/07/2001 6:05:45 PM PDT by matcrazy
CAIRO: Reports suggest that Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden has moved locations and could be in the northeastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, an official from Afghanistan's government in exile has said.
The London-based, Saudi-owned 'Asharq Al-Awsat' newspaper published comments on Sunday made by Ahmed Vali Masood, who said the "latest reports" were that Bin Laden was in Jalalabad, 125 km east of the capital, Kabul.
Bin Laden is Washington's prime suspect in the September 11 terror attacks. Afghanistan's Taliban government has admitted that it knows the Saudi dissident's whereabouts, but have so far refused to hand him over to US authorities.
Previously, sources with knowledge of the Taliban said there were "indications" that Bin Laden was in the Bagran district of Helmand province - about 380 km southwest of Kabul - a few days after the attacks in the United States.
"We know he (Bin Laden) has at least four doubles who travel in different directions using a similar convoy of Toyota cars usually used by Bin Laden," said Masood, brother of assassinated Afghan Opposition leader Ahmed Shah Masood.
Ahmed Vali Masood doubts that Bin Laden will fight in any attacks that may be launched by the US or Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, which opposes the Taliban's rule of the country.
"Bin Laden's priority is to protect his life. I have read stories in the western media portraying Bin Laden as a hero who fought the Soviets, but this was not right because all that time he had worked with the CIA in recruiting Arabs (to fight Russians)," Masood, who is based in London, told the paper.
( AP )
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