Posted on 03/09/2003 5:50:50 AM PST by knighthawk
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani provincial official who said last week he had reports that two sons of Osama bin Laden had been wounded and possibly arrested in Afghanistan said on Sunday he had been misquoted in media reports.
"Some newspapers and news agencies misquoted my comments to the international media," Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, the home minister of Pakistan's Baluchistan province, said in a statement.
"In my interview, I said quite categorically that the said operation was not being conducted on Pakistani soil and that Pakistani forces were not involved. In my statement, I said only that the reports about the arrest of bin Laden's sons were unsubstantiated."
Zehri told Reuters on Friday he had heard that two of bin Laden's sons had been wounded and possibly arrested in an operation on Thursday by US and Afghan troops in the Ribat region of Nimroz province where Afghanistan's border meets those of Pakistan and Iran.
He also said he had heard nine suspected al Qaeda members had been killed in the operation.
Zehri said at the time he could not be certain about the accuracy of the arrest report.
The White House, the Pakistani government and Afghan officials quickly said they could not substantiate the report.
Another Baluchistan official denied other reports that Pakistani forces had taken part in operations in pursuit of al Qaeda in the Chagai, Dalbandin and Noshki regions in the central and eastern parts of Baluchistan province.
Officers from Pakistan's Frontier Corps told Reuters last week Pakistani forces had launched an operation in pursuit of al Qaeda suspects on Thursday in the Ribat region, in the far west of Baluchistan. They said it involved some US forces.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly denied that any new operations have been launched on Pakistani territory in pursuit of bin Laden.
Reports of an intensified hunt for the world's most wanted man have come after Pakistani officials announced they had arrested the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The arrests raised hopes interrogators could get leads from him on bin Laden's whereabouts.
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