Osama safe in Afghanistan: Taliban
From correspondents in Kabul
19mar04
AL-QAEDA leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri are safe and in Afghanistan, not neighbouring Pakistan where an intense manhunt is under way, a Taliban spokesman said today.
Speaking 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.
He was "100 per cent" sure the Al-Qaeda No.2 was safe, Samad said.
"All these reports about Ayman Al-Zawahiri being surrounded in Pakistan are not true, they are just propaganda by the US coalition and by the Pakistani army to weaken Taliban morale.
"They are all safe and they are on this side of the border," Samad said of the top Al-Qaeda leadership.
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.
An Afghan military source said today that some 50 Al-Qaeda operatives had been pushed over the border from Pakistan to Afghanistan in the past week.
These men had been based in tribal South Waziristan and they are now hiding in the south-eastern province of Paktika, particularly around Urgun, Gayan and Barmal, he said, requesting anonymity.
He also confirmed that intense psychological warfare had been going on, with the American military trying to destabilise the Al-Qaeda network with misinformation.
Known as "psy-ops" in military terms, these operations were stepped up in recent days, in particular with the spreading of rumours about the capture of top Al-Qaeda militants, he added.
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