‘Osama cornered in Balochistan’
LONDON: US and British special forces have cornered al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a mountainous area in Balochistan, near the Afghanistan border, the Sunday Express newspaper reported.
Quoting "a US intelligence source," it said Osama and up to 50 henchmen were inside an area 16 kilometres wide and deep "north of Khanozai town and Quetta". "He is boxed in," the unidentified source was quoted by the tabloid as saying, adding that US special forces were "absolutely confident" that he could not escape.
According to the source, Osama moved into the area, "in the desolate Toba Kakar mountains," about one month ago from another area 240 kilometres to the south, the Sunday Express said. Taliban leader Mulla Omar is believed to be with Osama, according to the report.
In Washington, a Defence Department spokesman declined to comment. The area is under surveillance from a geo-stationary spy satellite, while the US and the British special forces await orders to move in, the newspaper said in its early edition, received late Saturday.
The Sunday Express said it was also told in London by "a senior Republican close to the White House and the Pentagon" this past week that Osama had been located. "They have found bin Laden," the source, described as an "intimate" of the family of US President George W Bush, was quoted as saying. "They now know where he is within a manageable area, which can be watched and controlled."
The Sunday Express said Osama’s whereabouts had been discovered from "a combination of CIA paramilitaries and special forces, plus image analysis by geographers and soil experts". "They studied the background in bin Laden’s last video and matched it to rocks in the Toba Kakar region," the newspaper said. "A two-man special forces surveillance unit them infiltrated the area," it said, adding that they picked up their first clues that Osama was in the area within a week. "Other teams then slipped in," the Sunday Express quoted its source as saying. "To avoid any alert, helicopters were not used."
A graphic published alongside the Sunday Express report indicated that the area in which bin Laden is supposedly hiding is immediately to the north of Khanozai and Murgha.
A local security official denied Osama’s reported encirclement. "Nothing of this sort is going on in the Toba Kakar area," the security official said. "There is no such information available with us," he added.
Muhammad Ejaz Khan adds from Quetta: The Balochistan Home Department on Sunday denied the report that any member of the Taliban or al-Qaeda was either cornered or arrested from any part of the province. "There is no truth in these reports," a senior official of the Home department told The News. He said on the condition of anonymity that no such arrest was made from Khanozai town and Quetta. A senior official of Khanozai administration also dispelled the impression that an operation has been launched there or any suspect belonging to the Taliban or the al-Qaeda was cornered. |
