Fugitive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden recently escaped a sweep by Pakistani troops hunting for Taliban fighters and is hiding near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, an Afghan official said yesterday.
Haji Abdullah, head of the Pashir Wa Agam district, south of the Afghan town of Jalalabad, said he had recently spoken to a former leader of the ousted Taliban regime who said bin Laden had made an appeal for a safe house.
"Four days ago, I met a former Taliban leader from Peshawar who told me he had received a fax sent from a satellite telephone and signed `the Sheikh,' the title used to denote Osama bin Laden," Abdullah said.
"The fax said that the Sheikh was safe and sound, that he had managed to escape an operation led by the Pakistani army in South Waziristan and that he had found refuge in a place on the border," he added.
US military officials have repeatedly refused to comment on speculation surrounding bin Laden's fate.
The leader of the al-Qaeda network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks has been the target of one of the most intense manhunts ever conducted since going to ground during the US-backed war to oust the fundamentalist Taliban in 2001.
The Pakistani military launched an operation on Feb. 24 near Wana, in South Waziristan, in Pakistan's western tribal belt, to hunt down "foreign terrorists" believed to be hiding in the area.
Around 20 people suspected of al-Qaeda links were arrested in the operation.
"Another Taliban source told me that Osama bin Laden had asked Taliban leaders to meet urgently in Quetta [in Pakistan] to try to find him a safe place to hide out," Abdullah said.
US commanders on the trail for bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar said in January they were confident that they would snare the two top fugitives within a year.
The comments by the leader of the US-led forces in Afghanistan, General David Barno, revived speculation that the kill-or-capture hunt for bin Laden may be reaching its conclusion.
Meanwhile, American and Afghan troops killed nine suspected Islamic militants in a gun battle in the eastern province of Paktika, not far from the Pakistan border, the US military said yesterday.
The clash on Friday began when US forces opened fire on a group of 30 to 40 armed men who appeared to be trying to move to the side of their sniper position east of Orgun-E, 170km south of Kabul, in order to launch an attack.
"They were armed, they were acting in a hostile manner, so we fired on them and then we pursued them with the Afghan National Army," US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Hilferty told a news briefing.
"Nine of them were killed in that battle, and there were no coalition casualties."
At least 10 US snipers from a special operations task force in Afghanistan were involved in the battle, supported by a nearby battalion of Afghan troops. The rest of the group of suspected guerrillas fled.
The clash was one of the largest reported in recent months between 13,000 US-led troops in Afghanistan and their local allies and Islamic militants from groups including the ousted Taliban militia and al-Qaeda.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
‘OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE’: Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen are to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss EU-China relations and geopolitical challenges Top leaders from China and the EU are to hold a summit in Beijing this week, as the major economic powers seek to smooth over disputes ranging from trade to the Ukraine conflict. Beijing and Brussels have been gearing up to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, but a suite of squabbles over state subsidies, market access and wartime sanctions have dampened the festivities. A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would visit on Thursday. The statement came after the EU