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Osama bin Laden Dead, Pakistan's President Says
Saturday, January 19, 2002
By Jan Cienski
National Post
with files from news services

Kidney failure suspected: 'We just don't know,' White House spokesman says

WASHINGTON
Osama bin Laden may be dead, killed not by U.S. bombs but by kidney failure, said General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's President.

"I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason that he is a patient, a kidney patient," the Pakistani leader said yesterday in an interview with CNN.

"We know that he donated two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. One was essentially for his own personal use, and the other for general use."

Gen. Musharraf said he doubted bin Laden would have been able to use the machines while fleeing U.S. bombs and U.S. Special Forces troops supported by their Afghan allies.

"I don't know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghan-istan now," he said. "And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak."

While even Gen. Musharraf is not certain as to bin Laden's fate, he is likely to have the best information about the fugitive terrorist chief -- Pakistan's feared Inter Services Intelligence agency used to sponsor the Taliban regime that once sheltered bin Laden, helping him and many other Islamic volunteers battle the Soviets in the 1980s.
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Dan