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London Tabloid Reports Bin Laden Found: Al Qaida "Operative" Scoffs

Jeremy Reynalds, 02/25/04

According to Britain's Sunday Express tabloid newspaper, Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by U.S. special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Sunday Express is claiming the al-Qaeda leader has been "sighted" for the first time since 2001 and is being monitored by satellite, London's Sunday Telegraph reported (www.sundaytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,9353,8752173-28778,00.html).

The Sunday Express reported that bin Laden and a number of his bodyguards are hiding in a mountainous area to the north of the Pakistani city of Quetta. The region is said to be populated with bin Laden supporters.

The paper's source for the report (an unidentified U.S. intelligence official in Washington), was quoted as saying that bin Laden is "boxed in." The source also reportedly said U.S. special forces were "absolutely confident" that he could not escape.

According to the Sunday Express's source, bin Laden moved into the area, "in the desolate Toba Kakar mountains," about one month ago from another area 240 km to the south.

A Washington-based U.S. Defense Department spokesman declined to comment on the story, the news service Agence France- Presse (AFP) reported.

According to the Sunday Express, bin Laden's location was discovered through a combination of intelligence tip-offs and video image analysis by geographers and soil experts.

However, an anonymous Pakistani political expert interviewed by Islam Online, a self-described "global Islamic site on the Internet that provides services to Muslims and non-Muslims in several languages" dismissed as "nonsense" the U.S. claim that rocks and soil helped in locating bin Laden.

Speaking to IslamOnline.net (www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-02/22/article04.shtml) in a telephone interview from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the source said bin Laden keeps moving around.

However, the individual told Islam Online that it is very likely bin Laden is hiding along the 1200 km Pakistani borders with Afghanistan, and as such his location could be found "via satellites and Taliban's opponents."

The expert also said it is impossible to place the drawn-out borders under close scrutiny either from the Pakistani army or Afghan authorities, Islam Online reported. He added that Pakistan had denied reports that U.S. Marines were operating on Pakistani soil, saying that as a preventive measure against a public uprising U.S. troops are not allowed publicly into the country.

Self-proclaimed al Qaida operative Daleel Almojahid, who has been posting threatening statements on line for a number of months warning of impending terrorist attacks against America, had harsh words about bin Laden's potential capture.

He wrote in an e-mail message, "Keep dreaming of catching ... Osama bin Laden. May God keep him a sword in the throats of the Americans and whomever follows their path into hell."

Almojahid added that bin Laden is, in fact, "fine and free under the freedom and mercy of God almighty, protected by God's protection and who protects better. It's still not the time for (him) to get seized or killed yet in the name of God, and what is more rewarding than getting killed in the name of the one and only."

According to Almojahid, it is not bin Laden who is in trouble. "I can assure you that the Americans are the ones being trapped and surrounded and you will see this in the coming few months as Taliban is going to launch a wide scale operation to bring back more parts of the Islamic state under its Islamic rule, the rule of God. You wait and we wait and we will see who's awaiting victory."