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“Some people might like to think he is dead, but that’s just wishful thinking.”
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JALALABAD,
October 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies ) - Osama bin Laden is alive
and regularly meeting with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar,
according to a telephone call intercepted by American spy satellites.
In
the conversation, recorded less than a month ago, Omar and a senior aide
were discussing the American-led hunt to track them down, reported the
British newspaper The Guardian.
The
two men, using a mobile Thuraya satellite phone, spoke about tactics for
several minutes.
Omar
then turned to a third person who was within a few yards of him, voice
analysis revealed.
After
exchanging a few words, Omar said that “the sheikh sends his salamats
[greetings].” Senior Taliban figures habitually refer to Bin Laden as
“the sheikh”.
Earlier
in September, IslamOnline’s Afghanistan correspondent revealed that
Taliban chief Mullah Omar is still alive, and has been in Afghanistan
since the U.S. war on the war-torn country in October 2001, the Central
Asia News Agency (CANA) quoted the Taliban official spokesman as saying.
Omar,
who constantly changes his whereabouts, is in touch with Al-Qaeda leader
Osama Bin Laden, said Sayed Mohamed Tayeb Agha in an interview with the
agency from an unknown place.
The
Taliban chief is being guarded by eight-hundred students from religious
schools, he said, adding that the last time Omar saw Bin Laden was in
Kandahar at the time the American warplanes attacked Afghanistan.
According
to the Guardian, voice analysis appears to corroborate the
identification of Bin Laden. “It shows he was alive recently at
least,” a senior Afghan intelligence officer said.
“Some
people might like to think he is dead, but that’s just wishful
thinking,” he said.
The
revelation comes amid growing speculation that Bin Laden is dead. He has
looked gaunt and unwell in videos released by Al-Qaeda, and appeared
unable to use his left arm.
There
has been no public statement from Bin Laden since early this year.
Some
analysts say this lack of communication indicates that he might be dead,
but others say he is biding his time, the Guardian said.
“He
does not want to be rushed into saying something reactive. He wants to
make statements on his own terms,” said Abdul Bari Atwan, editor of
the London-based Al-Quds newspaper.
Other
analysts feel Omar could have been bluffing, knowing his call was being
intercepted by the Americans.
Bin
Laden’s whereabouts are unknown, but it is thought he is moving
between Pakistan and Afghanistan via the border between the Afghan
province of Paktia and the Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan.
There
were unconfirmed sightings of him in eastern Afghanistan in March and
April.
The
only confirmed location for him was at Tora Bora, the cave complex south
of Jalalabad, in December 2001.
One
year after the start of a U.S. military campaign against his Al-Qaeda
network in Afghanistan the fate of Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted
man, remains shrouded in mystery.
Despite
a 25-million-dollar price on his head, the alleged mastermind of the
September 11 attacks on New York and Washington has apparently vanished,
leaving only a trail of speculation in his wake.
Conflicting
reports have placed him in Pakistan or still in Afghanistan, where his
presence prompted the October 7, 2001, start of the U.S. campaign which
eventually led to the downfall of his Taliban hosts.
Others
say Bin Laden is dead, having perished under heavy U.S. bombardment of
his mountain hideout, or finally succumbing to a kidney condition which
purportedly required dialysis treatment, leaving him frail and
vulnerable, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The
vacuum of information about his fate has allowed both sides to push
their preferred version of the truth in claims and counter claims raven
with doubt and uncertainty.
U.S.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a recent television interview
that he had not seen any evidence since December 2001 that Bin Laden was
still alive.
“I
don’t believe I’ve seen a hard piece of information that would
persuade me that he was alive since last December, and it’s now
September,” Rumsfeld told CNN television last month.
“He
may be alive, he may be dead, he may be injured, but I've not seen
anything that persuades me that I could have high confidence with
respect to any one of these three answers,” he said.
Days
after Rumsfeld’s comment, a man claiming to be an ex-Taliban diplomat
told a secret press conference in the Pakistani frontier town of
Peshawar that both Bin Laden and Mullah Omar were alive.
Omar,
who was rarely seen in public even before he fled Taliban’s last
stronghold in December, has also proved frustratingly elusive to his
pursuers.
Legend
has it he drove away from the southern city of Kandahar on a motorbike
after a surrender deal brokered by current Afghan President Hamid
Karzai.
“Mullah
Omar is alive and is inside Afghanistan. I met him 15 days back,”
Naseer Ahmed Roohi, who claimed to be the former first secretary of the
Taliban's embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), told reporters.
“Omar
is also in touch with Osama bin Laden. Osama is neither dead nor has he
come to Pakistan,” he said.
“He’s
alive and in contact with Mullah Omar. He’s inside Afghanistan, he
never crossed the border (into Pakistan).”
The
coalition was last sure it had located Bin Laden in December during a
military assault on the Tora Bora mountains, but many believe he and
other Al-Qaeda leaders may have taken advantage of a temporary ceasefire
to slip away.
Nothing
has been heard from him since, apart from a videotape message aired in
December but thought to have been filmed weeks earlier.
The
capture of several of his leading operatives in Pakistan has fuelled
theories that Bin Laden is among many Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who
have fled over the porous border from Afghanistan.
Although
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said he wouldn’t “entirely
rule out” the notion that Bin Laden was in Pakistan he more recently
said he was convinced the Saudi-born millionaire was not in his country.
“I
can say it for sure,” he told reporters after addressing the U.N.
General Assembly last month.
“He
is about six-feet-five (nearly two meters) and moves, I am sure, with a
large protection force, maybe a couple of hundred people,” Musharraf
said. “Now this is really very recognizable.”
