 Pakistan believes Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden is hiding in southern Afghanistan, where the Taleban have stepped up attacks, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said in an interview published yesterday.
| "We're sure he's not here! We asked around and everything!" |
Bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri and fugitive Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar might be in the area since it is ânot under effective control of Afghan government,â Sherpao told the official Associated Press of Pakistan. âThe possibility of Mulla Omar, Osama Bin Laden and his close aide Ayman Al-Zawahiri hiding in that area cannot be ruled out,â the minister told the news agency.
| So how can you rule out any or all of them being in Waziristan, North or South, which is similarly, even less so, under the control of Pakistani gummint? |
Sherpao denied that Bin Laden, who has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head after masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, was on the Pakistani side of the rugged terrain near the Afghan border.
US and Afghan officials have long said they think Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda kingpins have been hiding out in the mountains on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan since the Taleban were toppled in late 2001. Islamabad and Kabul have recently traded accusations about whose side of the border the militants are hiding, and who is to blame for failing to find them. |