Osama is alive: Taliban
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Islamabad, Sept 27, IRNA
Pakistan-Osama
Top Taliban military commander Mulla Dadullah Akhund has claimed that Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was alive.
According to The News, he said there was no truth in reports that bin Laden died from typhoid in Pakistan in August. Sheikh Osama is alright. He is safe, Dadullah maintained.
There was no way to verify Dadullah's claim.
In the past Dadullah had also issued statements to the effect that Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar were alive and that both were leading the resistance against US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan.
When pressed for evidence to show that Bin Laden was alive, Dadullah hinted that there was a possibility of a tape being sent to media organizations to prove that the Al-Qaeda head was not dead.
However, he declined to say when such a tape would be made available.
The last time Bin Laden sent an audiotape was in late JuIy.
In that tape he eulogized the sacrifices of Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and described him as a martyr.
He demanded that Zarqawi's body be handed over to his family for burial in Jordan.
He also made it clear in the tape that Zarqawi was under orders to kill anyone supporting the US-led forces in Iraq. That audiotape was the fifth issued by Bin Laden in 2006.
His last videotape was sent in October 2004 a few days before the presidential elections in the US.
Renewed interest in Bin Laden's fate was triggered by a report in a French regional newspaper that the Al-Qaeda leader died after suffering from a serious bout of typhoid in Pakistan on August 23.
It was based on an intelligence memo reportedly shared by Saudi secret services with their French counterparts.
Subsequently, both Saudi and French governments made it clear they could not confirm the report about Bin Laden's demise.
The US and Pakistan governments also expressed their ignorance about the report.
It is not clear whether Taliban commanders such as Dadullah would have access to Bin Laden, his deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other important Al-Qaeda figures.
There have been reports that Al-Qaeda and Taliban members have forged closer ties with each other since the collapse of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in December 2001.
However, there is no evidence that Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mulla Omar could be hiding together in one place.
Meanwhile, President Pervez Musharraf in his autobiography `In the Line of Fire', suggested that the most likely place for Bin Laden to hide would be Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province due to the fact that many Saudis were hiding there. However, he was quick to add that there could not be any certainty Bin Laden was in Kunar.
At another place in his book, President Musharraf wrote: "I have said, half-jokingly, that I hope he is not caught in Pakistan, by Pakistan's troops."
His statement alluded to worries that there could be a backlash at home, particularly by Islamic groups, if Bin Laden was captured in Pakistan.
Regarding Mulla Omar's whereabouts, the president thought he was most likely close to his original base in southern Afghanistan.
Referring to allegations that Mulla Omar could be hiding in Pakistan, the president wrote in his book that these allegations are ridiculous and may even be mischievous.
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