Haaretz:bin Laden captured along Afghanistan-Pakistan border

[SeanAshi]

Osama bin Laden has been captured along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a report Saturday on Tehran Radio.

In the report quoting "knowledgeable sources," the official Iranian media outlet does not specify when the Al-Qaida leader was captured, and the report has yet to be confirmed elsewhere.

It said that Bin Laden was apprehended in a region populated by tribes along the border of the two countries, adding that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visit to Pakistan on Thursday was related to capturing the Al-Qaida leader.

Bin Laden has been the target of a massive manhunt by the United States since the September 11, 2000 attacks in which two hijacked airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center in New York, causing it to collapse, while another plane hit the Pentagon, and a fourth apparently crashed in a field when passengers resisted the militants. Thousands were killed in the attacks.

Earlier Saturday, DPA reported that hundreds of U.S.-led coalition troops launched an operation in the Afghanistan's eastern province of Khost to hunt down Al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives, citing the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).

Qoting witnesses AIB said about 35 military vehicles and tanks were seen moving towards the southeastern part of the province close to the Pakistani border.

"The convoy has now reached around the areas of Tora Ghara, Toda Cheena and Mustalbar and has launched the search operation, along the Pak-Afghan border region," travellers moving across the border into Pakistani town of Miranshah told AIP.

Helicopters were also flying over the area that faces Pakistan's north Waziristan region in the east, they said.

According to AIP no Khost official was immediately available for comments on the new operation but U.S. officials had indicated last week that a big mobilization of coalition troops in Afghanistan was imminent to flush out militants suspected in the mountain region.

There had been rockets attacks in recent weeks from the southeastern part of the Khost aimed at U.S. and government targets.

Khost had been one of the main strongholds of the extremist Taliban regime in the years before they were toppled by a U.S.-led military coalition in late 2001.

Some 11,500 U.S. troops are currently deployed in Afghanistan to hunt down remnants of the ousted Taliban regime and members of the Al-Qaida network, mainly in the south and southeast.

http://www.dallasdancemusic.com/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif? I doubt its true, what a let down.

[Tengu]

I would like to believe it. But need to see him on cnn :)

[sunnysandy]

Well the local media here are saying the same ?But even I will believe it when I see it on CNN.

[citizen-k]

It's on the radio since this morning...

They say Bush wil try to keep it quiet as mach as he can (for political reasons)

[Operation Ivy]

please be true!!! woot

[Operation Ivy]

:| :(


TEHRAN, Iran - Pentagon (news - web sites) and Pakistani officials on Saturday denied an Iranian state radio report that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) was captured in Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan (news - web sites) "a long time ago."


AP Photo



The claim came at a time when Pakistan's army was hunting al-Qaida suspects in a remote tribal region along the border with Afghanistan, believed to be a possible hiding place for the al-Qaida leader. The report was carried by Iran radio's external Pashtun service, which is designed for listeners in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the language is widely spoken.


Iran state radio's main news channel — the Farsi-language service for Iranian listeners — did not carry the bin Laden report. Iran state television also did not carry the report.


The director of Iran radio's Pashtun service, Asheq Hossein, said he had two sources for the report. The radio quoted its reporter as saying bin Laden had been in custody for a period of time, but a U.S. announcement of the capture was being withheld by President Bush (news - web sites) until closer to the November election.


"Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election," he said.


There have been reports that military forces believed they had identified bin Laden's general location and had him encircled, but Pakistani officials have denied any specific knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts.


The state radio report, quoting an unnamed source, said U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest.


Larry Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman who traveled with Rumsfeld this week to Afghanistan, denied the report. "I don't have any reason to think it's true," he said Saturday.


Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, also said he had no information to suggest bin Laden had been caught.


"Things are going well, and we believe we will eventually catch all the leaders of al-Qaida, but I know nothing of that report," he said.


Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied the reported capture, saying it was "baseless news."


"We have neither arrested Osama nor we have any information about him," Ahmed told The Associated Press.


Pakistani Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan also told The Associated Press that the report was not true. "That information is wrong," he said.


A Pakistani official said previously that members of al-Qaida are being sought in the border region, although bin laden was not a specific target.


Separately, Pakistani forces killed 11 people in an exchange of fire Saturday after a minibus failed to stop at a roadblock in a tribal region where the ongoing anti-terrorism operations have been taking place, an army spokesman told the AP. The shooting occurred a day after armed men and soldiers exchanged fire at a military compound in the region.


Speaking to the AP in Tehran, Hossein identified one of the sources for the bin Laden report as Shamim Shahed, editor of the English-language Pakistani newspaper The Nation in Peshawar. Hossein said Shahed told him Friday night that bin Laden was arrested "a long time ago."


But Shahed, who is The Nation's Peshawar bureau chief and not its editor, denied telling Iranian radio that bin Laden had been captured.





"I never said this," Shahed said in a telephone interview with the AP's Islamabad bureau. "But I have for the last year been saying that he is not far away. He is within their (the Americans') reach, and they can declare him arrested any time."

Hossein said he had a second source for his report that bin Laden had been captured, but he declined to identify him except to say he was "a man with close links to intelligence services and Afghan tribal leaders."

The Iranian news agency IRNA was first to report the capture of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). IRNA also carried the state radio report about bin Laden's capture and said it had contacted a radio announcer at the Pashtun service who confirmed the news


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040228/ap_on_re_mi_ea/bin_laden&cid=540&ncid=716

[Ghostwolf]

It seems that the U.S. and Pakistan Governments have already denied this report as soon as it comes out.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/399184.html

[DeltaWhisky58]

Displaying his body would be the sensible option - why allow him to beome a martyr in prison?

[M1A2U2]

Displaying his body would be the sensible option - why allow him to beome a martyr in prison?

I'll Decide that.[/quote]

[Sixgun Symphony]

Displaying his body would be the sensible option - why allow him to beome a martyr in prison?

I agree.

I can already see the ACLU trying to spring him out of prison with legal loopholes and lawyers tricks.

[Argyll]

It's all irrelevant anyway,he will be viewed as a martyr no matter what fate has in store for him

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

It's all irrelevant anyway,he will be viewed as a martyr no matter what fate has in store for him

I personally would rather have him alive and rot in a prision cell somewere in Texas, listening to CCR "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog" straight for the rest of his life.

"Joy to the world...all the boys n girls...joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea...Joy to you and me" :lol:

P.s. He'd live under a 1000watt constantly on too.

[Steve Railsback]

Iranian radio said that he was captured by some local tribes near the Pakistani/Afghanistan. But the Pakistanis and Americans deny that this have occurred. :(

[Falco]

When are the american presidential election going to be again ...

[jones]

The same old story has been reported in the Iranian press since this time last year, I think the news of Saddams capture was reported first by the Iranian press.

[hank]

Displaying his body would be the sensible option - why allow him to beome a martyr in prison?

I agree.

I can already see the ACLU trying to spring him out of prison with legal loopholes and lawyers tricks.

explain this? what tricks and has this ever happened before? Do you just make this crap up? Would the ACLU really care about an Saudi national held in Afghanistan? Osama has no rights if held outside the continental 49 + AK + HI. Been that way since 1948 and the ACLU nor any other lawyer will be able to pull a "trick" to do otherwise unless the US SC says so.

Explain.


hank

[California Joe]

Three Dog Night sang "Joy to the World". John Fogerty was too cool for that. Just sayin.

[James]

California Joe was a bullfrog...

[hank]

One IS the loneliest number that I ever knew. Well, it is.

hank

[raid]

When (prefer to say "when" than "if") they capture him and other top AQ leader, there will be weeks, if not months, before they let the world knows about it. Because we need to get as much informations as possible from him before terrrorist cells all around the world learn about his capture and start to hide in rat holes for years.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was already in custody...

[usa320]

IM confident that this report is not true, but im also confident there will be a report of his arrest in comming days that WILL be true.

[n.ignomo]

There are rumours according to which Bin Laden would have been caught BUT that Bush wants to announce just before the election (spring) to make the effect and not to move his team outa white house.