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U.S. Says No News on Bin Laden Capture Claim
The U.S. government said on Wednesday it had no information to substantiate an Iranian Radio report that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been captured in Pakistan. "We have no information to substantiate that claim," said a spokesman for the U.S. administration, whose view was echoed by two other U.S. officials and Pakistan's information minister.Iranian Radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., reported bin Laden was being held by Pakistani Inter-Intelligence Services and that U.S. troops were present. "There is nothing to substantiate this rumor," another U.S. official said of the report. The State Department also told Reuters it did not have any information to either confirm or deny the report. "We have not heard anything," a department spokeswoman said. State would be on my list as last to know anything Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat also discounted the report of bin Laden's reported capture. "This is absolutely unfounded and absolutely baseless," Hayat told Reuters. There's an lot of denying going on. The report of bin Laden's arrest follows the high-profile capture in Pakistan on March 1 of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Pakistan's intelligence agency said this week that Mohammed's arrest had resulted in information helping them close in on the al Qaeda leader. A senior Pakistani intelligence officer said Mohammed had told them he met bin Laden in December, a claim the official said had not yet been confirmed. Other reporting from the area suggest a massive search operation is going on with reports of hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda being rounded up. Posted by: Steve 2003-03-12 |
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