<

Fresh U.S. Air Strikes Stoke bin Laden Speculation
Thursday, February 7, 2002
(5:22 AM PT)
By Sayed Salahuddin
Reuters

Drones often had al-Qaida leader in sights

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Reuters
U.S. planes bombed suspected Taliban and al Qaeda positions in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday as a missile attack by a pilotless CIA drone triggered speculation that Osama bin Laden himself had been killed.

U.S. officials in Washington said they believed a tall al Qaeda leader had been killed in the CIA missile strike in the east of the country but the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency said three Afghan civilians had been killed.

Elsewhere, about 600 fighters loyal to warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum refused to leave the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, defying a U.N.-backed security plan and undermining interim leader Hamid Karzai's efforts to crack down on warlordism.

On the road north from the capital Kabul, survivors of an avalanche near the entrance to the Salang Tunnel, the world's highest, said that up to 20 people may have frozen or suffocated to death in the incident.

A U.S. official in Washington said a CIA Predator drone had fired a Hellfire missile at a group of men thought to include a senior al Qaeda official.

“The central figure had a close encounter of the worst kind with a Hellfire missile,” the official said.

But the private AIP news agency said a U.S. missile hit a group of young men in the Zawar Khili area, 20 miles southwest of Khost town and 10 miles from the Pakistani border on Tuesday night.

“Two people were killed on the spot and one died on the way to hospital,” the AIP said. AIP, citing tribal elders, identified the three dead men as Munir Ahmad, Jehangir Khan and Daraz Khan. “They were standing and chatting when hit by the missile,” said the elders. They also said there were no al Qaeda people in the area, AIP said.

Bin Laden, who is believed to be between 6 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 6 inches tall, is accused by the United States of masterminding the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that he did not know whether bin Laden was dead or alive.
(More: The Guardian News Source)
2002 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan