Posted on 12/06/2005 11:30:14 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
Osama bin Laden has vowed never to be taken alive and once gave his bodyguard a pistol with two bullets to shoot him if it appeared that he might be caught, according to a new book of interviews with people who know the al Qaeda leader.
The book excerpted in the new issue of Vanity Fair, "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History" by CNN security expert Peter Bergen, also says bin Laden intensely dislikes deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
After the 2001 attacks on the United States carried out by al Qaeda the Bush administration made much of what it said were links between Saddam and bin Laden's organization, citing this as one justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Bush said in a speech in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and gases."
Bin Laden's Pakistani biographer, Hamid Mir, told Bergen that when he interviewed bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader "condemned Saddam Hussein ... He gave such kind of abuses that it was very difficult for me to write," he said.
In an interview with Bergen, bin Laden's former chief bodyguard said, "Sheikh Osama gave me a pistol and made me his personal bodyguard. The pistol had only two bullets, for me to kill Shiekh Osama with in case we were surrounded or he was about to fall into the enemy's hands, so that he would not be caught alive."
Bergen, who met bin Laden in 1997, interviewed more than 50 people over eight years to produce the book which will be published next month.
In the Vanity Fair excerpt, Bergen said that contrary to claims from the Bush administration, bin Laden was in the mountainous eastern Afghanistan region of Tora Bora after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001.
Reports at the time said U.S.-backed Afghan forces scoured the area in a vain bid to catch bin Laden and his top lieutenants, although there has never been any U.S. confirmation that he was definitely there.
Abu Jaafar al-Kuwaiti, an eyewitness, posted an account about the morning of December 10, 2001, on al-Qaeda's main Web site, writing: "We received the horrifying news! The trench of Sheikh Osama had been destroyed; the trench where Sheikh used to come out every day to check the moujahedeen situation and follow the news of the battle. God kept Osama bin Laden alive, because he left the bunker only two nights to an area only 200 metres (650 feet) away."
The United States is still trying to catch bin Laden, who U.S. officials say they believe to be still somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
Trust Rueter's to make the scumbag a legend.
Vanity Fair seems to be getting it's fair share of interviews lately. I guess connections help.
* Peter Bergen [tries to dismiss the Hikmat Shakir connection between Iraq & al Qaeda] : "Shakir is a pretty common name," said terrorism analyst and author Peter Bergen, "and even if the two names refer to the same person, there might be a number of other explanations. Perhaps al-Qaida had penetrated Saddam's security apparatus." -------- "Cheney is holding the (terrorist) cards: 9/11 panel: New evidence on Iraq-Al-Qaida ," By Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor , Published 6/20/2004 5:27 PM , http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040620-050700-2315r
Hmmmm? I presume his bodyguard has a very powerful slingshot in order to propel the bullet projectile.
Even the discredited 9/11 commission said that AQ and Iraqi intelligence met.
I believe he got his wish. He is buried under tons of rubble and his cohorts don't want to depress their following and so they won't admit it.
He better be killed on the spot when he is found. If he is taken alive you just know that his joke of a trial will be even more of a circus, and waste of money, than Saddam's. Whoever finds him should just double tap him and save us all alot of aggravation, and the fact that it would make the left scream in horror is all the more incentive.
Just like Saddam, no doubt.
Hey Saddam, the worm, Hitler at least had the guts to pull the trigger...
Wow, that's one more than Barney Fife got. I wonder if he kept them in his pocket?
This implies that the bodyguard was not armed otherwise. One wouldn't think there would be a need to give a bodyguard two bullets, since a good one is already armed. But it makes for a better story, and who can prove the writer is lying?
Are we surprised? binny is a coward.
Well, in case there's a problem, Oslima, I've got a couple of bullets you can have, and I won't miss.
I find this 2 bullet thing odd too. 2 bullets for a guy who is always pictured with an ak74 Krinkov machine pistol?
I wish this were the case but it isn't - Not yet - UBL is very much alive just as Zawahiri and Mullah Omar are - Along with the two other biggest HVT's in Stan...Jalaluddin Haqqani & Gulbuddin Hekmatyar -
They are all being hunted and one by one we will get them -
He's dead Jim.
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