Conflicting reports about Zawahiri’s location

KABUL, March 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri are safe and in Afghanistan, not neighboring Pakistan where an intense manhunt is under way, according to a Taliban spokesman Friday, March 19.

Speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP) by satellite phone from southern Afghanistan, Abdul Samad dismissed speculation by Pakistani officials that Al-Zawahiri could be surrounded in the Pakistan border district of South Waziristan, saying he was "100 per cent" sure the Al-Qaeda number two was safe.

"All these reports about Ayman Al-Zawahiri being surrounded in Pakistan are not true, they are just propaganda by the U.S. coalition and by the Pakistani army to weaken Taliban morale," he said.

"They are all safe and they are on this side of the border," Samad said of the top Al-Qaeda leadership.

Within the same line, Afghan military commanders in border regions said Friday that activities had increased along the porous frontier, believed to be the hiding place of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

Pakistan has unleashed a deadly assault on its tribal Waziristan border region in an effort to trap or kill Al-Qaeda personnel and their Taliban allies.

A commander of the Afghan Militia Force's 25th division in eastern Khost province, Khialbaz Khan, said the American forces had ramped up their operations.

"We have increased our activities, the Americans have increased their activities," he said.

Khost city is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the Pakistani border with North Waziristan.

"We have increased our patrols, also the Americans have increased their patrols. We are after Al-Qaeda and Taliban."

U.S. forces launched a new campaign dubbed Operation Mountain Storm to trap Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders on March 7.

Khan said his troops had arrested 13 suspects in the border region, mainly for possession of heavy weapons such as machine guns and mortars.

However, he said it was likely these suspects would be released soon in the heavily-armed Pashtun area because they were not militants.

Meanwhile, mortars and rockets were found positioned in the area, suggesting that Taliban are active in the region and preparing to carry out an attack, Khan said.

Foreigner Not Bin Laden

On Thursday, Pakistani troops who saw a heavily-guarded "foreigner" flee a siege near the Afghan border in a bullet-proof land cruiser are certain he was not Osama bin Laden, a senior security official told AFP.

But the level and sophistication of resistance put up by scores of heavily armed fighters as he escaped made them conclude it could be the Al-Qaeda chief's number two, the official added.

"The Frontier Corps troops who saw this foreigner said they were certain it was not bin Laden, but they speculated it could be Ayman al-Zawahiri," the official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

"The way he was whisked away, the way fighters sprang from nowhere, that made us believe that if it was not bin Laden, and we're sure it was not, that it was his deputy.

"We can't think of another Al-Qaeda leader who could have such high protocol and such sophisticated tight defense."

The foreigner was spotted in a four-wheel drive fleeing a siege of tribesmen's homes in remote Kalushah village in South Waziristan, some 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) east of the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan's tribal zone, Tuesday.

A contingent of 50 paramilitary troops was attacked with grenades and sub-machineguns while approaching a fortress-like compound in a hunt for tribesmen wanted for sheltering Al-Qaeda fugitives.

Suddenly a land cruiser appeared and sped away, as two other land cruisers - also carrying foreigners - emerged to protect the first car and dozens of fighters sprang from several directions to pound the soldiers with gunfire and grenades.

The entire troop contingent was "virtually wiped out," the official said.

Fifteen were killed, 22 were injured, and another 13 are still missing.

Soldiers who survived the onslaught said the foreigner in the first land cruiser had "outlandish features," and was "neat and clean" in appearance.

They fired at the vehicle but the bullets bounced off, only managing to hit one of its tires.

"We haven't seen a bullet-proof vehicle in the area before and the theory is that it was carrying a high profile Al-Qaeda leader, possibly Zawahiri," the official said.

The fighters appeared to be a mix of foreigners and local tribesmen, he added.

"The troops are in no doubt that the militants showed up just to protect those vehicles," he added.

One of the vehicles was blown up by a mortar and the two foreign-looking men inside were killed. "Their faces were mutilated but we think they could have been Uzbeks," the official said.

The well-protected "foreigner" who escaped Tuesday could well have slipped the net of Pakistani forces, who are still pounding the area with mortars and helicopter gun ships, the official said.

50 Million Dollars

Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday doubled the reward for bin Laden's capture to 50 million dollars. A 25-million-dollar reward remains on the head of Zawahiri, considered the brains of Al-Qaeda and accused by Washington of being allegedly a key planner of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The U.S. military said it had trained intense surveillance on the Waziristan area including Predator drones. Pakistani officials said troops were targeting five villages in a six-kilometer radius around the main South Waziristan town of Wana.

Two Pakistani government officials told AFP it was believed the militants were protecting Zawahiri, who along with bin Laden escaped the dragnet of U.S. forces after the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

Zawahiri, 52, is a former leader of the Egyptian Jihad movement which was implicated in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the 1997 massacre of foreign tourists at Luxor on the Nile River.