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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| France sez recent bin Laden hideout found |
| 2004-03-23 |
| International forces recently found a location where fugitive al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is thought to have taken refuge, according to French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie. She said in an interview to be published Tuesday that French troops operating near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan had helped trace bin Laden but did not say where, how wide an area she was referring to or whether he was still there. A ministry spokesman said Alliot-Marie was referring to the discovery of a location where bin Laden was believed to have been "at a certain time" and it was not clear where he was now. "Our men are well established and know the terrain well. Thanks to certain information, they were recently able to make an effective contribution to locating him," Alliot-Marie told Express magazine in an interview released before publication. Asked whether the man located was definitely bin Laden, she replied: "Everything leads us to think so." She said she could provide no details for reasons of security and confidentiality but added that even his capture would not change matters much because terror networks had become increasingly autonomous. "What she wanted to say was that, with the information they provided, French forces contributed to locating him at a certain time. It is a terrible hunt for a rat on the loose," the ministry spokesman said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #12 Also notice that our little phrench phriend didn't define what she means by "recent". Is she talking about six months, a year, two years, five??? Hell, WE knew where he was five years ago, and possibly as little as a year ago. I also wonder how she can justify saying that phrench troops "know the terrain well", when most Afghanis don't know the terrain well more than ten miles from home. Sounds like a puff piece to make France look oooohhh so much better at anti-terrorism than the Americans, without actually providing any specifics - in other words, typical phrench bullshit. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-3-23 1:05:08 PM |
| #11 11A5S: "What's up with the trolls today?" Midterms over, more time on their hands ? On topic, my worst concern is that France or some other euro force actually captures bin Laden alive. I doubt he would be turned over to us. |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H 2004-3-23 11:54:33 AM |
| #10 Given their track record in Yugoslavia, I think that the only reason that the French would want to find OBL is to tell him to get out of the area before the Americans show up. What's up with the trolls today? I'm not even half way through Rantburg and I've seen anti-semitic, anti-Bush and pro-jihadi trolls already. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-3-23 11:41:37 AM |
| #9 I'm with Traveller on this one. If Michael Moore Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda track the guy down, I would be well satisfied to have him removed from play. I don't worry too much about what happens next as the French would then have him in the middle of Afghanistan which is different than having him in Senegal. Even Kerry says he would like to personally blow his brains out. Bin Laden has killed many people from a whole lot of different pissed-off countries. Holding Bin Laden would be the last thing that Chirac would want. It is one thing to catch Bin Laden it is quite another the jail him in your country while a quarter of your population commences to burning shit and blowing stuff up. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-3-23 11:39:07 AM |
| #8 I personally hope france does not find him. All they will do is capture and hold him in some jail cell tii he dies of natural causes. |
| Posted by: smokeysinse 2004-3-23 10:41:29 AM |
| #7 ...Gotta be honest - my first thought is that the French are hunting him down because they are afraid of him spilling the beans on something. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-3-23 10:31:26 AM |
| #6 I think the French are there just to award him a place at the Paris Home for Potentially Useful Mass Murderers (Ayatollah Khomeini Wing). |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-3-23 8:21:55 AM |
| #5 I figure the French would award him the much covited"Corete'de Toad. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2004-3-23 7:10:48 AM |
| #4 I'm with you, dotcom. Isn't is convenient that the Froggies happened to find OBL's hideout--guess they know a lot about where to cowar in fear, not to mention how rats behave under pressure! LOL... And they're not going to tell us where it is, because if they told us, then they'd have to kill us and we wouldn't want that! |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-3-23 6:27:34 AM |
| #3 Traveller - you are soooo generous! Sympathetic? Uh, I'd strongly suggest that "self-serving" is far far closer to the truth. I, too, find these stories to be wonderfully amazingly remarkably short on substance and very very very long on PR. I'll be quite happy to say I was dead wrong, stupid, untrusting, and unfair, should the French capture bin Laden. If they produce his corpse, I'll think about it once the circumstances and facts are verified. Meanwhile, methinks these stories are, to say the least, untrustworthy and laughable. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-3-23 5:37:33 AM |
| #2 Well, whether true or not, the French are in Afghanistan and are hunting Ben Laden. This is all to the good...if the French were to kill him, I'd give the entire Country a pat on the back. More importantly, this is a French Minister speaking and saying, "It is a terrible hunt for a rat on the loose." Calling Osama a "Rat," is a nice touch...and, as I think about it, it IS hard to catch a "Rat," on the loose. Isn't this whole statement sympathetic to the United States' efforts? |
| Posted by: Traveller 2004-3-23 5:14:48 AM |
| #1 This series of "French guys singehandedly chasing down Bin Laden" dispatches is the funniest thing I've read in a long, long time. |
| Posted by: someone 2004-3-23 3:34:37 AM |