Posted on 03/07/2003 9:21:59 AM PST by knak
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Two sons of Osama bin Laden have been wounded and possibly arrested in an operation by U.S. and Afghan troops in Afghanistan which has killed at least nine suspected al Qaeda members, a Pakistan official has said.
It was not immediately clear whether the operation was linked in any way with a hunt for al Qaeda members which military sources said was being carried out by Pakistani and some U.S. forces in a remote area bordering Afghanistan and Iran on Friday.
"We have information that two sons of Osama bin Laden were injured," Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, home minister of the western province of Baluchistan, told Reuters. "The people killed belonged to al Qaeda.
"We have heard that they (the sons) may have been arrested. But our information may not be 100 percent true," he said.
The operation had taken place on Thursday in the Ribat area, where the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran meet.
The minister, who was speaking during a visit to the southern port city of Karachi, said he had no information that bin Laden had been in the Ribat area at the time of the raid.
A U.S. official in Washington could not immediately confirm the report of bin Laden's sons' capture. "We don't have any information to substantiate that," the official said.
Pakistani presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi and Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed both told Reuters they had no information.
"I have no information what's happening across the border," the information minister said.
Bin Laden is reported to have fathered many children. When Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai interviewed bin Laden in 1998 he then claimed to have 13 children.
Residents in Baluchistan province said leaflets were dropped there on Thursday offering rewards for the capture of bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders.
Officers of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps told Reuters Pakistani forces had launched an operation on Thursday, also involving a few Americans, in pursuit of al Qaeda suspects in the Ribat region.
But Pakistani and U.S. officials rejected reports that a new operation was under way targeting bin Laden.
"I categorically say there is no operation going on Pakistani territory anywhere," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Reuters. "There is no search. We know nothing about Osama.
"International media is creating a panic all over the country that we are going to catch him in two days or three days. This is totally wrong."
"BIN LADEN NOT IN PAKISTAN"
Colonel Roger King, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said U.S. forces based in that country were not involved in any major new operation on the Pakistani border.
"We are performing our normal duties, regular patrols, but nothing, there is no special big operation along the border."
Thousands of U.S. troops have been deployed in Afghanistan for more than a year hunting for al Qaeda and Taliban remnants, concentrating their activities in the Pakistan border region.
The arrest last weekend of suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed raised hopes that interrogators could get leads on the location of bin Laden, the world's most-wanted man, who has evaded U.S. forces since a U.S. bombing campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.
U.S. officials said this week they believed bin Laden was in the rugged tribal borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told CNN in an interview broadcast on Friday that Pakistani intelligence agencies were active all over the country tracking down any leads they could get, including in border areas with Afghanistan.
But he doubted bin Laden was in Pakistan.
"He wouldn't be hiding alone or with one person...he seems to be alive," he said. "He would be moving with a large number of bodyguards. He can't be in Pakistan."
A Pakistani Frontier Corps officer said the operation in Ribat involved "lots of Pakistanis and very few Americans".
"It started 4 p.m. on Thursday and is continuing," he said.
A resident of Dalbandin, 218 miles east of Ribat, said pamphlets were dropped on Thursday in the Chagai border area with Afghanistan offering rewards for bin Laden and other al Qaeda figures. He said U.S. helicopters were seen on Thursday.
Musharraf said Pakistani security agencies had been on to Mohammed for almost a month before arresting him and agents were following up leads on other al Qaeda members.
Documents seized during the arrest suggested bin Laden was alive and that the two had been in contact, a senior Pakistani security official said on Thursday.
He said Pakistani security forces had intensified operations in Baluchistan, where several al Qaeda and Taliban militants have been arrested in the past. Ribat is in Baluchistan.
. . . and who might that be ?
See this:
Search Narrows - U.S., Pakistani Officials Center Hunt for Bin Laden on Caravan
;)
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