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U.S. 'Holding bin Laden Bodyguards'
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
(10:08 GMT) (11:08 UK)
The BBC

"He [bin Laden] has a very large security detail, so their presence there does not tell one anything. And none of them, to my knowledge, have said that he's dead."

Several of Osama Bin Laden's bodyguards are among prisoners currently being held in a prison camp in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, U.S. reports say.

The number of men being held is unknown, and it is not clear what, if any, information authorities have been able to obtain from them, although they are thought to have been in the camp for several months.

The news came as intelligence officials said that Bin Laden's son, Saad, had begun playing a prominent role in his father's al-Qaeda network since the group went into hiding following the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.

Sources told CNN that if the bodyguards had been captured away from Bin Laden there is a good chance that he is dead.
(More: BBC Online News Source)
2002 © The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Dan