By Saeed Ali Achakzai
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden, if he's alive, celebrates his 50th birthday on Saturday, and his friends in the Taliban prayed for his long life.
The al Qaeda leader's long silence has fueled speculation that the world's most-wanted fugitive may have died, though many in the international intelligence community reckon Islamist militant Web sites would circulate word of his death.
'He is alive. I am 100 percent sure,' Taliban spokesman Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters, adding that senior leaders were in touch with bin Laden, reinforcing a widely held view that he is hiding near the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Khan said special prayers were offered by Taliban fighters in camps in Afghanistan to mark bin Laden's birth on March 10, 1957, in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
'We prayed that Allah may give him 200 years to live,' Khan said,' by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location."
_______________________________________________
During a news conference at the White House on March 13, 2002, Bush said something close to what Kerry quoted. "I truly am not that concerned about him," the president said, according to the official White House transcript.
Bush's original comment came while U.S. forces in Afghanistan were searching for the Al Qaeda leader, who had eluded joint American-Afghan military operations designed to find him.
"We haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is," Bush said during the 2002 news conference. "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.
No comments:
Post a Comment