Free Republic

<p>ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Two sons of Osama bin Laden were arrested in southeastern Afghanistan in a joint operation involving U.S. forces, Pakistan's provincial home minister Sanaullah Zehri said. "They were arrested from Rabat area in Afghanistan," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. He did not identify the sons, but said that seven other Al Qaida men were killed in the operation. Zehri refused to identify which forces were involved in the operation. "They were allied forces," he said refusing to identify the nationalities of the forces involved in the operation. Rabat is at the extreme tip of southwestern Afghanistan where the Afghan, Pakistan and Iran borders meet.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. officials told CNN on Friday they can't substantiate and don't believe a report that two sons of Osama bin Laden have been captured.</p> <p>The U.S. officials said they are still investigating the reports from wire services quoting a Pakistani provincial official, but do not believe it is accurate.</p>

March 7 — Two of Osama bin Laden’s sons have been arrested in southwestern Afghanistan, a Pakistani provincial official said Friday. U.S. counterterrorism officials disputed the claim. SARDAR SANAULLAH ZEHRI, home minister of the province of Baluchistan in northwestern Pakistan, told the Associated Press that Saad and Hamza bin Laden had been captured in the Rabat area in Afghanistan after a gunbattle that killed seven other al-Qaida fighters. In a separate interview with Reuters, he said that both bin Laden sons had been injured in the battle, but provided no other details. U.S. intelligence officials who spoke with NBC News...

Two wire of Ben Laden stopped: Islamabad lunatic The ministry for the Pakistani Interior, Faisal Saleh Hayat, contradicted Friday that two wire of Oussama Ben Laden were captured in Afghanistan, as announced not very front by a provincial person in charge for Baloutchistan (south-western of Pakistan)."Il absolutely does not have there no truth in this information. There was no arrest of this nature ", declared Mr. Hayat with the AFP with Islamabad.A Washington, an American person in charge also contradicted this information. "It is not true. We absolutely do not have any information to support that ", indicated to...

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...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan March 7 ? A top provincial official said Friday that seven al-Qaida members were killed in an operation in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border and that two sons of Osama bin Laden may been wounded in the raid. U.S. counterterrorism officials disputed his claim that the bin Laden sons were captured.Sanaullah Zehri, who as home minister of Baluchistan province is the top security official, said the raid was carried out by "allied forces" including U.S. troops in an area of Afghanistan where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan converge.At the Pentagon, two senior officials said they could...

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...

Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat on Friday denied reports cited by a provincial minister that two sons of Osama bin Laden had been arrested in a joint operation by Pakistani, Afghan and US forces in southeast Afghanistan near the Pakistani and Iranian borders. "There is absolutely no truth in this report. There has been no arrest of this nature," Hayat told AFP, dismissing claims by Baluchistan province's home minister home Sardar Sanaullah Zehri. A report from Quetta said the provincial minister in Baluchistan said he has been informed that two sons of Osama bin Laden were captured in a...

Osama's two sons captured by US officers: Pak minister Islamabad, March 7, IRNA - The American forces have captured two of the sons of Osama bin Laden in an operation in a border area inside Afghanistan, a Pakistani provincial minister said on Friday. Home Minister of the southern Balochistan Province Sardar Sanaullah Zehri told reporters in Quetta that the Osama's sons are among eight persons captured during the operation. He said according to his information Osama's sons were injured. He added that eight al-Qaeda men have been killed in an operation in which Saad and Hamza bin Laden were arrested...

Fri March 7, 2003 03:30 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday cast doubt on reports from Pakistan that two sons of Osama bin Laden were wounded and possibly arrested in an operation by U.S. and Afghan troops in Afghanistan. "We have no information to substantiate that report," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters. But he said it was "only a matter of time" before bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders are found. In Pakistan, Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, home minister of the western province of Baluchistan, told Reuters that two sons of Osama bin Laden...

With the world on tense alert as war with Iraq looms and the chase after Osama Bin Laden grows hotter, news organizations reported yesterday that two of Bin Laden's sons had been captured in Afghanistan. The report - attributed to a Pakistani security official - sounded exactly like the sort of result many hoped would come from last week's capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and one of the few in Bin Laden's inner circle. Even without official U.S. confirmation, financial markets around the globe rallied on the news. But the White House and...

Federal Minister, US and Afghans Refute The Claim. ISLAMABAD: Two sons of Osama bin Laden were arrested in southeastern Afghanistan in a joint operation involving Pakistani and US forces, Balochistan Home Minister Sanaullah Zehri said on Friday. "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 told reporters "They were arrested from Rabat area in Afghanistan," Zehri told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Speaking to reporters in Balochistan, Zehri said...

<p>Islamabad, Pakistan -- Excitement surrounding the intensified search for Osama bin Laden briefly spiked on Friday with a report by a provincial Pakistani official that two of the al Qaeda leader's sons had been captured.</p> <p>But Pakistani and American officials vociferously denied any knowledge of the arrests of the sons, Saad and Hamza bin Laden, clouding an already murky picture of secret operations under way along the Pakistan-Afghan border to find the terrorist and his supporters.</p>

THE United States has refused to deny reports that two of Osama bin Laden's sons – including his heir apparent to the al-Qaida terror network – have been captured in a gun battle with US troops. The reports, confirmed on television by a Pakistani Government official, have intensified speculation that the US is closing in on the fugitive terrorist warlord, the world's most wanted man since the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. The official said bin Laden's sons were shot in a fierce gunfight between al-Qaida fighters and US troops in Ribat, an area of...

ISLAMABAD: The Taliban supreme leader Mulla Omar and two sons of Osama bin Laden were arrested in southeastern Afghanistan while intensified search continues for the most sought after man Osama Bin Laden in a joint operation involving US forces sources informed. The news of arrest of Osama’s two sons Saad, 23 years old and also bin Laden’s eldest son is also on the American most-wanted list and Hamza was disclosed by the Balochistan Home Minister Sanaullah Zehri in Quetta on Friday. The al-Qaeda leader is believed to have up to 23 sons by several wives. The brothers were captured in...

Pakistan claims to have captured Bin Laden's sons By Phil Reeves, Asia Correspondent 08 March 2003 Two of Osama bin Laden's sons were arrested in southern Afghanistan yesterday in a joint operation by Pakistani and US forces, a minister for Pakistan said last night. Sanaullah Zehri, the minister in charge of security in the province of Baluchistan, said the men had been picked up near Rabat in the south-west of the country where it borders Pakistan and Iran. Seven al-Qa'ida men were killed in the operation, he said. There had been reports of US military activity in the area. The...

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...