German Intelligence: Bin Laden Alive

Las Vegas Sun ^ | July 13, 2002 | AP

[PJeffQ]

Today: July 13, 2002 at 7:35:12 PDT

German Intelligence: Bin Laden Alive
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN- The head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency said in an interview published Saturday that he believes Osama bin Laden is still alive and hiding along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

August Hanning, the head of the Federal Intelligence Service, also estimated that more than 5,000 supporters of al-Qaida and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia remain in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, while many others have returned to their homelands.

"They are preparing attacks from their new locations - they will try everything to strike again," he was quoted as saying in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "We must be prepared for that."

He referred to no specific plans.

Bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network are held responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Shortly after the attacks, Bush said he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive."

Since then, Bush and other U.S. officials have played down the search for bin Laden, saying the more important goal is disrupting al-Qaida and preventing future attacks.

"As our knowledge stands, we are convinced that bin Laden is still alive, in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan," Hanning was quoted as saying.

"He is still the symbolic figurehead of al-Qaida, but apparently moves around little and when he does, in a very secretive manner," Hanning added, without elaborating.

Last Monday, President Bush said he does not know whether bin Laden is dead or alive.

German security agencies have worked closely with their counterparts in the United States to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks after it emerged that three of the suicide hijackers had lived undetected in Hamburg.

Hanning said bin Laden was consulted in planning for major al-Qaida attacks "but he did not operationally prepare the actions, and probably didn't even know all the details of the preparations."

He added the preparations for Sept. 11 "didn't cost much more than $1 million."

[M. Thatcher]

German intelligence. Mm-hmm.

[cardinal4]

Germany is in the EU,isnt it?

[Beowulf]

Let's see him show his face.

[Free the USA]

Index Bump

[UnChained]

It seems to me that Bin Laden would have tweaked our nose by now, and released a video tape of himself that would be unambiguously recent. If he were alive, he could deliver a very powerful call for all out Jihad. The fact that he has not provided the faithful with proof that he is alive indicates that he has assumed cave temperature. IMHO

[Commander8]

Frankly I think bin Laden is dead and the source of all these reports of him living is an Al Qaeda disinformation campaign to preserve his "heroic" myth and scare the American populace. The Reds used to do that with Che Guevara.
Dead or alive, we should not cower in fear of him.

[guitfiddlist]

He referred to no specific plans.

Nor to any indicators as to why he thinks Bin Laden is alive. So did his psychic tell him so?

[Teacher317]

Didn't alQaeda promise a video of OBL a few weeks ago?

[PJeffQ]

Supposedly a July 4 message wasn't it?

[SpinyNorman]

Big brave Osama is doing a fine job of cowering in a cave somewhere, isn't he?

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with the Germans. If Osama was alive, he would not miss the opportunity to make tons of tapes with contemporary newspaper front pages to rally the troops. If he is alive, and fails to do that, he is either in a coma, or his kidneys are exploding and they can't detach him from a dialysis machine. Should make him extremely easy to catch I would wager.

[Mixer]

He is alive remember the big video announcement he made on the 4th of July that changed America forever? Nope didn't think you did. We all missed that one.

[Cindy]

Hey Elvis, did you hear that? Has Bin Laden is alive!

[Jhoffa_]

He's alive, GREAT!

That means we get to kill him!

[kinghorse]

Mm-hmm s right. I read this tripe earlier. Some nobody saying nothing, citing no one. The more I hear from the Euros the less respect I have for them. We pulled out our biology book and looked up the current variant of Euro. We found a match under the species Acquiesus Pollyanus.

[SkyRat]

I wouldnt trust the BND either. Those guy's are only a bunch of losers.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

A lot of folks thought Hitler was alive until about 1980. He was "hiding in Argentina" or he "had plastic surgery" or something like that. Germany has won a lot more World Cups than World Wars. Maybe they should stick to soccer.

[PJeffQ]

Weekly World News reported Hitler was alive in 1991 and was caught boarding a boat somewhere in Central America in an attempt to go to Saddam Hussein's aid.

They even included a computer generated age-progression photo.

[Kobyashi1942]

A lot of folks thought Hitler was alive until about 1980. He was "hiding in Argentina" or he "had plastic surgery" or something like that. Germany has won a lot more World Cups than World Wars. Maybe they should stick to soccer.

Got news for you, one-on-one, Duetchland could beat the snot out of any nation in WW2. The only way to beat them was to get the entire world against them.

[makoman]

Bin Laden has been at the local taxidermist! I can’t wait to see the results!