Osama bin Laden and fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar are alive and well, a purported Taliban commander said in a TV interview, adding that he still receives orders from Omar.
Pakistan's Geo television broadcast the interview with the man it identified as Taliban military commander Mullah Akhtar Usmani, a former Afghan aviation minister.
A black turban shielded the man's face, making it impossible to recognize him or verify his identity. He wore a gray jacket, and an AK-47 rifle was propped next to him as he spoke in front of a red-patterned, Afghan-style rug.
In response to a question, the man said he would not specify where bin Laden was hiding.
"Thanks be to God, he is absolutely fine," he said in the interview broadcast Wednesday.
The man said the Taliban are still organized and senior Taliban leaders hold regular consultations. "Our discipline is strong. We have regular meetings. We make programs," he said.
He said Omar does not attend the meetings but "decisions come from his side." He did not say where those meetings take place.
Geo said the interview was recorded last week, but declined to say where.
In Washington, a US intelligence official said: "The belief in the intelligence community is that he's [bin Laden] still in the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border."
It seemed reasonable to believe that former Taliban officials still gather to meet, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
General Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said Wednesday that the interview was "not serious" and wouldn't help the rebels. He questioned why the man claiming to be Usmani was afraid to show his face, though he stopped short of questioning his identity.
"He was just saying the same thing as usual," Azimi said. "This doesn't make any difference in terms of improving their military or political situation."
Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, the government's chief spokesman Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and officials at the Interior Ministry were unavailable for comment Wednesday.
A senior journalist at the independent station said the interview was done near the Afghan town of Spinboldak, which is close to the Pakistani border.
The interview was conducted in broken Urdu, Pakistan's main language and the language in which Geo broadcasts most of its programs. Most senior Taliban speak Pashtu.
In speaking about Omar, the man referred to the Taliban chief by his self-proclaimed title of "ameerul momineen" -- "leader of the faithful."
"Ameerul momineen is our chief and leader. No one is against him. Our ameerul momineen is alive. He is all right. There is no problem. He is not sick. He is my commander. He gives me instructions," the man said.
Asked whether he has direct contact with Omar, the man said: "I will not say whether I meet with him or not. But he is giving instructions."
A US-led coalition ousted the Taliban in late 2001. The offensive was launched after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden and dismantle al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, which bin Laden is accused of orchestrating.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS