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| Monday, 8 March 2004 |
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Bin Laden escaped Pakistani dragnet KABUL, Sunday (AFP, Reuters) Fugitive Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden recently escaped a sweep by Pakistani troops hunting for Taliban fighters and is hiding near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, an Afghan official told AFP. Haji Abdullah, head of the Pashir Wa Agam district, south of the Afghan town of Jalalabad said he had recently spoken to a former leader of the ousted Taliban regime who said bin Laden had made an appeal for a safe house. "Four days ago, I met a former Taliban leader from Peshawar who told me he had received a fax sent from a satellite telephone and signed 'the Sheikh', the title used to denote Osama bin Laden," Abdullah said. "The fax said that the Sheikh was safe and sound, that he had managed to escape an operation led by the Pakistani army in South Waziristan and that he had found refuge in a place on the border," he added. "Another Taliban source told me that Osama bin Laden had asked Taliban leaders to meet urgently in Quetta (in Pakistan) to try to find him a safe place to hide out," Abdullah said. Meanwhile American and Afghan troops killed nine suspected Islamic militants during a gun battle in the eastern province of Paktika, the U.S. military said. in one of the heaviest clashes reported in recent months. In separate operations, 14 suspected rebels were detained in a U.S. air assault in the east on Thursday and two senior Taliban commanders were captured by Afghan forces on Friday after an attack on a post near the Pakistan border killed seven government soldiers. The clash involving U.S. forces began when they opened fire on a group of 30 to 40 armed men apparently trying to move to the side of their sniper position east of Orgun-E, 170 km (106 miles) south of Kabul, in order to launch an attack. |
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