Posted on 10/06/2002 6:27:53 AM PDT by twntaipan
London, Oct 6. (PTI): Suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden is alive and regularly meeting Mullah Omar, the fugitive leader of the Taliban, according to a telephone call intercepted by American Spy satellites.
In the conversation, recorded less than a month ago, Omar and a senior aide were discussing the American-led hunt to track them down.
The two men, using a mobile Thuraya satellite phone, spoke about tactics for several minutes. Omar then turned to a third person who was within a few yards of him, voice analysis has revealed, The Observer reported from Jalalabad.
After exchanging a few words, Omar said that 'the sheikh sends his salaams (greetings)'. Senior Taliban figures usually refer to bin Laden as 'the sheikh'.
The revelation comes amid growing speculation that bin Laden is dead.
He has looked gaunt and unwell in videos released by al-Qaeda, and appeared unable to use his left arm. There has been no public statement from bin Laden since early this year.
Bin Laden's current whereabouts are not known, but it is thought he is moving between Pakistan and Afghanistan via the remote border between the Afghan province of Paktia and the Pakistani tribal agencies of Waziristan.
Some analysts say this lack of communication indicates that he might be dead, but others say he is biding his time.
"He does not want to be rushed into saying something reactive. He wants to make statements on his own terms," said Abdul Bari Atwan, editor of Al Quds newspaper in London.
Notice there is not one reference to an American source on this.
That's because there isn't one, and no one has any Idea whatsoever what our satellites intercept, not that bin Laden was stupid enough to try that mode of communication when he was alive. He quit the phone thing when it was leaked we could listen in.
Or as I speculated about the American article, if this info came from an American source, it was someone like Tom Daschle trying to say "Iraq? Hussein? But... but... but we haven't found Osama yet..." IOW, just a last desperate effort to help the pro-Iraq crowd.
If Osama was by some great miracle alive he sure is a coward leaving his boys out there for the daisy cutters to mow down and not making any effort at all to boost the morale of his troops.
Nothing would satisfy America more than if Mullah Omar, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were captured alive and thrown in the same cell together........and televised 24/7 on cable tv.
Wrong. Nothing would satisfy America more than watching them be executed by being pushed off the top of the Empire State Building. Wow! Talk about pay per view potential!
Still, The Hindu is probably not a particular friend of radical Islam, and though it is not sourced (as you indicate) I found it an interesting piece.
My favorite thesis is that UBL is our special guest on Diego Garcia and after he has been fully cured of the evils and demons that possess him, he will go to paradise for his reward where he will, among other things, bathe in a mixture of molten sulphur and burning pig fat for eternity. In this context, 'phone leaks becaome a pure Clintonian diversion.
Too easy.
Imagine the fight when Saddam goes after Osama yelling,"You SOB...it's all your fault!!"
Let them fight it out for a couple of hours and then introduce burning jet fuel into the cell very slowly.
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Osama bin Laden is alive, traveling with his lieutenant, Egyptian Ayman Al Zawahri, living in Afghanistan and plotting more attacks, according to a satellite telephone conversation reportedly intercepted over the weekend by US and Afghan intelligence.
In the intercepted conversation, the Taliban's fugitive one-eyed leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar allegedly told his former deputy prime minister Maulvi Abdul Kabir that bin Laden and Al Zawahri have lots of money and that something will happen to change the scenario in Afghanistan in the next 45 days.
"We are in receipt of financial aid. Our benefactors have been approached and are supplying us with money," Omar told Kabir, without explaining the origin of the money.
He also told Kabir that "the situation in Afghanistan shall not remain the same. It shall see a change very soon." He warned Kabir against making any public statements for at least another 45 days, but did not say why.
The text of the conversation was given to The Associated Press by an Afghan intelligence official who had previously been with the Taliban administration and said he would readily recognize both Omar's and Kabir's voices.
News of the conversation comes after the Arab Satellite station Al Jazeera released an audiotape said to be from bin Laden in which a male voice warns that the "youths of God" are planning more attacks against the United States.
Al-Jazeera, which broadcast the tape Sunday, said the voice was bin Laden's, but there was no way to verify that claim, or when the recording was made.
"By God, the youths of God are preparing for you things that would fill your hearts with terror and target your economic lifeline until you stop your oppression and aggression" against Muslims, the voice said.
US officials have said they don't know whether bin Laden, whose al-Qaida terror group is thought to have carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, is still alive. The US State Department had no immediate reaction to the tape.
Al-Jazeera chief editor Ibrahim Helal told The Associated Press by telephone that the station received the tape two hours before the Sunday evening broadcast. He refused to say how the tape was received.
"We had no doubt this was bin Laden. It was not only the tone of the voice but also the way he spoke and the logic of the message," Helal said.
He said the fact the message was so brief "showed that the man (bin Laden) was in tough circumstances and does not have a chance to talk."
Qatar-based al-Jazeera has become known for its broadcast of audio and videotapes of al-Qaida leaders. Last month, it aired excerpts from a videotape in which a voice said to be bin Laden's is heard naming the leaders of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers.
Until then, bin Laden had not been heard from since shortly after the US-led bombing campaign began in Afghanistan last October.
In the recording broadcast Sunday, the man said his message was addressed to the American people, whom he urged to "understand the message of the New York and Washington attacks which came in response to some of your previous crimes."
"Those who have initiated (the attacks) are the ones who brought injustice," he said.
"But those who follow the activities of the band of criminals in the White House, the Jewish agents, who are preparing for an attack on the Muslim world ... feel that you have not understood anything from the message of the two attacks," he said.
"So let America increase the pace of this conflict or decrease it, and we will respond in kind," he said.
The reference appeared to be to the US-Iraq confrontation many believe will lead to war, which would date the tape to recent weeks. The reference, however, could have been to another conflict.
Al-Jazeera said one of its correspondents conducted an interview in June with two top al-Qaida fugitives that was aired to correspond with the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
One of the men in the interview, Ramzi Binalshibh, was captured in a raid in Karachi on Sept. 11, days after the interview was broadcast. Binalshibh was one of the suspected planners of the terror attacks on the United States.
Four other al-Qaida suspects were also arrested in that raid on a home in Karachi.
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