Print

Mail

wiki links

Bin Laden shows confidence in interview

He's in high spirits, speaking confidently and laughing readily. Osama bin Laden is a man at ease even though he feels the Americans will eventually kill him, his Pakistani interviewer said yesterday.

Journalist Hamid Mir ratcheted up the world's jitters yesterday with an exclusive interview with bin Laden in which the suspected terrorist mastermind said he had nuclear and chemical weapons and was ready to use them.

Mir, who published the interview in Pakistan's English-language newspaper Dawn, says he met with bin Laden in 1997 and 1998. When he saw the shadowy Saudi millionaire this time in Afghanistan, he found him greatly changed.

"Previously he was very soft-spoken," the 36-year-old Mir said. "But now he speaks like an experienced orator. He is very hard-hitting. He was in high spirits. He's very healthy and he laughs a lot.

"He's very critical about the government of Pakistan. Previously he was not so critical about Pakistan. So there is a big change in that man. He's more confident," said Mir, editor of the Urdu-language newspaper Ausaf.

The world's most hunted man since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the US, bin Laden feels certain the Americans will kill him sooner or later, according to Mir, who met him at a secret location outside Kabul.

"He told me, `I am ready to die.' He said, `I know that they can bomb this place also. They are not aware that I am present here. But they are dropping bombs blindly everywhere. So I may get killed even with you.'"

"My cause will continue after my death," he quoted bin Laden as saying. "They think they will solve this problem by killing me. It's not easy to solve this problem. This war has been spread all over the world."

Bin Laden, who is said to live constantly on the move to avoid capture and reportedly often shuttles from cave to cave, expressed no regret for his difficult circumstances.

"I cannot gain anything by adopting this way of life," Mir quoted him as saying. "I am fighting because they are killing us. We are the victims and they are the aggressors so we have no other option but to fight back."

The interview conducted Thursday was bin Laden's first since the kamikaze assaults on the US.

When the article appeared yesterday in Dawn, Pakistan's largest English-language daily, he became an instant celebrity. Media camped at his home hoping for interviews.

But it's not the first time the 14-year reporting veteran has put out controversial copy. Mir said he was fired from two previous publications for his writings about corruption in high places.

"They say our president is in America and this interview will be published and it will create problems for him," Mir said. "I said this is your perception. This is not my problem."
This story has been viewed 1969 times.