Posted on 11/27/2002 7:49:26 AM PST by blam
Bin Laden in 'excellent health' months after Sept 11 attacks
A Pakistani doctor says he saw Osama bin Laden last November and that the al-Qaida leader was in excellent health.
Dr Amer Aziz has been released after being held for one month and questioned by US security officials.
Aziz, a British-trained orthopedic surgeon, said he was summoned to a meeting in November, 2001 in Kabul, the Afghan capital.
He was asked to treat top al-Qaida leader Mohammed Atef. Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were present.
Dr Aziz said bin Laden showed no signs of the kidney failure that he is widely reported to suffer from.
"When I saw him last he was in excellent health. He was walking. He was healthy. I didn't see any evidence of kidney disease. I didn't see any evidence of dialysis," he said.
Dr Aziz said it was the second time he met bin Laden. The first time was in 1999 when Aziz said he treated the al-Qaida leader after he hurt his back falling off a horse in southern Afghanistan.
Aziz was recently released without official explanation after being held incommunicado and interrogated for a month by FBI and CIA agents.
He admitted that he had treated al-Qaida and Taliban members but said he knew nothing of the terrorist group's plans and rejected allegations he helped the organisation in its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
Reports of bin Laden's poor health, and his deteriorating appearance in video tapes released shortly after U.S. bombing began in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, fueled speculation that he might have died. But intelligence officials now say an audiotape released last month was recorded recently and was the voice of the al-Qaida leader.
At the time of the last meeting with bin Laden, Aziz was working in a surgical unit at the University of Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan.
Aziz said his American interrogators grilled him on bin Laden's health, asked him for the names of those he treated, and accused him of helping al-Qaida obtain weapons of mass destruction. He denied the allegations.
Story filed: 15:08 Wednesday 27th November 2002
Really? Well, let's see what we Americans can do to change that.
But the longer he stays alive, the weaker the Dems become, becuase they have no hope of ever running on a national security/anti-terrorism platform. So, in a sense, along with the neary 4,000 people he already killed, Bin Laden has effectively killed the modern Dem Party for as long as he breathes.
Nobody disputes that he was alive last November. If he's dead, he was probably killed on or around December 10.
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