Posted on 09/14/2002 4:06:10 PM PDT by Ranger
OSAMA bin Laden's supporters say the al-Qaeda leader is dead.
Shahid Ayan, who was hiding in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains with bin Laden during United States air raids in December, said the terrorist chief died 10 months ago.
"Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, but the jihad will continue until Judgment Day," he told United Arab Emirates newspaper Al Bayan.
Shahid said that late on December 10 – "the 24th night of Ramadan" – there were "some scary explosions" in the area where bin Laden's cave was located.
"The cave was completely erased from the ground and became nothing," he said.
"This was the only cave of the 15 that was destroyed by an enormous 52ft (16m) missile and there is no doubt that bin Laden died."
Shahid said bin Laden had taken refuge in the caves on November 15 with about 320 fighters.
US forces bombarded the area with laser-guided bombs and AGM-142s – television-guided missiles with earth-shattering warheads.
Pakistani intelligence sources last placed bin Laden in a 25-vehicle convoy travelling from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Tora Bora in November.
Bin Laden then appeared on a video released in December, when he appeared ill and had trouble using his left arm – prompting speculation he had been wounded in the bombing.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, the subject of a recent al-Qaeda assassination attempt, was yesterday quoted as saying he believed bin Laden was dead.
"The more we do not hear or him or see any signal of his whereabouts or survival, (the more) we are likely to believe he is not alive," Mr Karzai said.
But US intelligence officers are sceptical of the reports, which were also carried on al-Jazeera television, which bin Laden frequently uses to address his followers.
The station yesterday carried a statement from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar who pledged Islamic rule would return to Afghanistan.
"America won't enjoy Afghanistan or find comfort in it until it leaves ashamed," he said. "We reassure Muslims everywhere that we are abiding by the pledge and that victory is coming."
Send us your address, we can arrange that for you straight-away.
I've always held out hope that that was when we got him, too. It's also nice to see that there were 320 fighters in the cave with him (if he was really there). In that one explosion, we may have taken out a whole bunch of his best fighters and top lieutenants.
My question is when Shahid says the cave was completely erased and "became nothing," I wonder if he just means the cave completely collapsed or the bomb blew the whole side of the mountain out, leaving nothing but a smoldering pit of ash, or what? If the former, I'd sure like us to get some heavy equipment up there and pull every boulder out of that hole so we could recover all the surviving teeth and bone fragments for DNA analysis. Make it a big archaeological expedition.
2002 Ping
"I'm not dead yet!"
...but something happened between then and now for him to be so low-profile, and only appear recently sans AK.
Diameter?
They had a little arab guy standing at the entrance to the cave with a measuring tape. At the missle flew by, he measured it, then jumped out of the cave before it exploded so he could tell the world exactly how long the missle was!
/sarcasm>
I was totally convinced he was dead. He's not even mostly dead.
What about this recent video?
Maybe they found their own Miracle Max to cure him.
Yeah, that pretty much demolishes what I said on this thread two years ago.
Remember, Walter Cronkite said that the video was
a "Karl Rove" produced piece.
I thought in the most recent Osama video released by "Al jizz" last week, he spoke of recent events. Am I mistaken?
No you're not. What you're posting on is a two-year-old thread resurrected. Check the posting dates on the first couple of posts.
If this is true, did you notice that Al-Qaeda said this after the election so they would not help Bush? This makes sense and believe it is true.
I read a thread that says that President Kennedy has been assasinated.
What about that film I saw of him and Richard Nixon debating?
What about that, huh?!?!?! Yeah - I thought so!
:-p~~~
(You mean I need to look at the DATES on postings before I resurrect something? Why?)
if we had OBL, then he would have been President Bush's October Surprise.
With 8 billion muslims willing to hide him, there is no way to guess where he is.
Why he was in China, India, Iran and Pakistan last week alone.....
LOL
your not mistaken. Note the date of the original post is over 2 years old! I don't know why this is being recirculated. Beats me as its obviously wrong.
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