Posted on 03/07/2003 10:14:13 AM PST by kattracks
US and Pakistani officials denied an announcement by a provincial home minister that two sons of al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden were arrested in a joint US-Afghan-Pakistani operation in southeastern Afghanistan.
"There is absolutely no truth in this report. There has been no arrest of this nature," Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told AFP, dismissing claims by Baluchistan province's home minister Sardar Sanaullah Zehri.
A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity from Washington also denied the reports of the capture.
"It's not true," the US official said Friday. "We have absolutely no information to substantiate that."
Zehri earlier had told reporters in the Baluch capital Quetta that he had been informed by intelligence agencies of reports that two bin Laden offspring had been arrested in the operation in the southeast Afghan town of Ribat, where Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani borders meet.
"I am in constant touch with the security forces. I was informed by intelligence agencies that the reports coming across the border (from Afghanistan) are that two of Osama's sons were caught and they were injured," Zehri said.
There was no independent confirmation of the reports the minister said he had received.
The hunt for bin Laden intensified along Pakistan's northwest border Friday, with a senior Pakistani security official warning the al-Qaeda leader could not hide for much longer if information from top terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, nabbed in a pre-dawn raid Saturday, was correct.
Since Sheikh Mohammed's capture by US and Pakistani forces in the northern city of Rawalpindi, US planes have been seen airdropping leaflets over Baluchistan-Afghan border areas offering money for information leading to the capture of bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. Both men have a 25 million dollar bounty on their head, as did Sheikh Mohammed.
Search Narrows - U.S., Pakistani Officials Center Hunt for Bin Laden on Caravan
Drudge seems to be down, can't find any confirmation !
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