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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (42536)	5/6/2002 3:23:18 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

The United States remained concerned about the political situation in eastern Afghanistan, Secretary of State Colin Powell, amid a new report from the area that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has fled to a neighboring region of Pakistan, sources said on Monday. "There are problems in the eastern part of the country, over toward the Pakistani border, which causes us concern," Powell said. Meanwhile, a US news weekly reported US-allied commanders in the region have received credible reports that bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan with one of his top lieutenants. Another Afghan commander in Khost, Kamal Khan Zadran, reportedly told the weekly he thinks bin Laden's men are trying to keep their leader safe inside Pakistan as US-led forces search for him. "The local al-Qaeda network is active," Zadran told Newsweek. "They're working out their plans." The report by Newsweek is the latest of several indicating bin Laden and top lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri are hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas near the Afghan border. The Afghan chief of military intelligence, Hazrat Uddin, has said that he has received "credible reports" that Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant Ayman al Zawahiri, were seen inside Pakistan, Newsweek reported in its latest issue on Monday. The source said that Osama trimmed his beard and appeared healthy, Hazrat Uddin told the magazine. In Khost, an Afghan intelligence official in daily contact with the Americans says an operation launched on April 30 called Mountain Lion - using British, Australian and US 101st Airborne commandos to seek out possible Al Qaeda hideouts - will expand into a major offensive on both sides of the border. "They have a plan to go into Miram Shah to do an operation," he says. "There are 1,200 Americans and British in the tribal areas right now. They're working very hard. They're in a hurry." Officially, the Pentagon says there are no foreign troops inside Pakistan other than some logistical support personnel and it won't even say where the commandos are searching. While there are false sightings of Osama every day and there's no solid proof he's even alive, privately, many terrorism experts think Uddin is on the right track the weekly said. Both Hazrat Uddin and Zadran are stationed in the Afghan City of Khost, just over the mountain pass from Miram Shah, a corner of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, east of Afghanistan. Foreign troops are said to be roaming through that high country, the Newsweek said. Reports appearing in Dawn today..