Showing posts with label Bin Laden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bin Laden. Show all posts

US has no information about Osama's hideout: Pentagon



WASHINGTON: The United States has said it has no idea where top al-Qaeda commanders Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are hiding, a day after a report claimed that the two fugitives are living in houses in northwest Pakistan under ISI protection. 

"I don't think we know where they are. If we knew where they are I think we'd do something about it," Deputy Secretary of Defence William Lynn told the popular Charlie Rose show in interview. 

Lynn was responding to a CNN report which quoted an unnamed NATO official in Afghanistan that Osama is not hiding in the caves, but has been provided a safe shelter by ISI elements at a secure location inside Pakistan. 

"I don't think so. I think it was either an exaggeration in the telling or an exaggeration in the promotion of that. I don't think we know precisely where bin Laden is, and I don't think the report's accurate," Lynn said, adding that he has not seen the news report that elements in ISI was providing shelter to the top al Qaeda leaders. 

"Well, there are elements in the ISI that are engaged in things that are not helping (the war against terrorism). What all of those are, we do not know exactly. So I would not deny or express concern over news report saying that bin Laden is being assisted by elements in ISI," Pentagon spokesman David Lapan told reporters. 

Pakistan rejects report about Osama’s presence


“I categorically deny the report about the presence of Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri or even Mullah Omar in Pakistan,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters on Monday. – Photo by APP (File)
KABUL: Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is living comfortably in a house in north- west Pakistan close to his deputy Ayman Al Zawahiri, CNN on Monday quoted a Nato official as saying. 

Bin Laden is being protected by local people and “some members of the Pakistani intelligence services,” the television network said. 

It also said that the Al Qaeda number two, the Egyptian-born Zawahiri, was living close to him.“Nobody in Al Qaeda is living in a cave,” the unnamed senior Nato official is quoted as saying. 

Bin Laden is likely to have moved around an area ranging from the mountains of Chitral near the Chinese border to the Kurram valley near Afghanistan’s Tora Bora in recent years, CNN reported the official as saying. 

“The official also confirmed the US assessment that Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, has moved between the cities of Quetta and Karachi in Pakistan over the last several months,” said the report on CNN’s website. 

Report rejected 

Pakistani authorities rejected the report. “I categorically deny the report about the presence of Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri or even Mullah Omar in Pakistan,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters on Monday. 

“Bin Laden... and all other terrorists are anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan and hired assassins. If we have any information we will take action against them,” he said. 

A foreign ministry official, talking to AFP, dismissed the CNN report as “baseless” that has been “put out to malign Pakistan”. 

A Nato spokesman in Kabul said the alliance had no immediate comment.

Bin Laden living comfortably in Pakistan: CNN


Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. — Photo by AP

KABUL: Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is living comfortably in northwest Pakistan close to his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, CNN on Monday quoted a Nato official as saying.
The Saudi-born militant wanted for the September 11 attacks on the United States nine years ago was being protected by local people and “some members of the Pakistani intelligence services,” CNN said.
“Nobody in al-Qaeda is living in a cave,” the unnamed senior Nato official reportedly told the network.
“The official also confirmed the US assessment that Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, has moved between the cities of Quetta and Karachi in Pakistan over the last several months,” said the report on CNN's website.
It said the Nato official could not be named “because of the sensitivity of the intelligence matters involved”.
Sources
Designed and Developed By Amir Sayani