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Date Posted: 07:58:47 01/03/02 Thu
Author: From: ABC News
Subject: Afghan Official Believes Bin Laden Alive

Afghan Official Believes Bin Laden Alive

ABCNews.com
January 03, 2002

Osama bin Laden is "most likely" alive and hiding with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in Afghanistan, the foreign minister of the country's interim government said Wednesday.

Abdullah Abdullah said the whereabouts of both men were unknown, but he echoed U.S. intelligence sources who say there are indications that bin Laden is not dead. Unlike American officials, though, Abdullah said he believes bin Laden has not left Afghanistan.

"It is most likely that he will be with Mullah Omar," Abdullah said Wednesday on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America . "And since we haven't seen the body, we could say that he is still alive. But there are also some reports from some corners of Afghanistan that he is still around in the southern part of Afghanistan."

Sources told ABCNEWS this morning that some Taliban were surrendering and turning over their weapons to forces of the new Afghan government west of Kandahar, but Abdullah said he still did not expect a quick end to the conflict with the remaining holdout supporters of the hard-line Islamic regime.

"I cannot be certain about full surrender of the Taliban, the pockets of Taliban in different parts of the country this week," he told Good Morning America . "But I think this will happen. Either they will be captured or they will surrender. But the search for Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, I'm not optimistic that it will end this weekend or next."

But Abdullah denied a report this morning that Afghan forces were negotiating the surrender of Omar with Taliban holdouts near the town of Baghran.

Jamal Khan, a commander for the local Afghan intelligence chief, told The Associated Press Wednesday that negotiations have been going on for two days with Baghran's loya jirga , or grand council, of tribal leaders.

"I have not received such a report," Abdullah told Good Morning America . "His whereabouts are not known, neither to us nor to the coalition, I gather, but sooner or later he will be captured."

Meanwhile, some 200 U.S. Marines searched an abandoned compound in southern Afghanistan that allegedly housed senior Taliban and al Qaeda figures, but U.S. officials said the mission was not related to the hunt for Omar.

Marines who returned from the mission told ABCNEWS they came away with small arms and intelligence documents, and no shots were fired. They called the sweep-and-surveillance operation one of the largest ground operations inside Afghanistan so far.

Omar is believed to be hiding near the town of Baghran, about 100 miles northwest of Kandahar, in rough, nearly inaccessible mountain country -- and Afghan leaders are believed to have mounted a mission to find him.

Searching the Compounds

In recent days, there has been speculation that the Marines would soon play a direct role in the mission to capture the Taliban leader. On Monday, shortly before revelers rung in the new year, U.S. Marines in full battle gear and at least 4,000 Afghan fighters left Kandahar for the mountains of central Afghanistan, where Omar and up to 3,000 of his die-hard supporters may be holed up.

The sight raised suspicions that the United States may be involved in the effort to capture Omar, but both Navy Cmdr. Dan Keesee of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., and Adm. Craig Quigley from Central Command rejected such speculation. Quigley said several hundred Marines have "exploited" several locations north of Kandahar, searching compounds they knew were empty for possible intelligence.

Earlier, Afghan sources in the governor's office and the office of the local intelligence chief in Kandahar told ABCNEWS that the governor called together all the local chieftains and commanders, asking each to supply 60 to 100 fighters for the campaign against Omar and his loyalists.

Meanwhile, an intercepted phone call from Iran suggests that bin Laden is still alive -- if not in the best of health.

A senior military official told ABCNEWS the communications, intercepted over the past few days, used a code word for the accused terrorist mastermind, and suggested "you should keep [bin Laden] off of the television. He looks bad, he looks sick and it is demoralizing to his people."

Additional information also indicates that people close to bin Laden are behaving in a way that shows he is still in very much in charge, a U.S. intelligence official said.

In other developments:

U.S. defense officials believe that American bombs killed the Taliban intelligence chief at a compound in the eastern part of Afghanistan last week. The officials said it is believed that Qari Ahmadulla was killed in Naka, in the eastern province of Paktika, on Dec. 27, when U.S. planes attacked a house where he was staying with his associates.

A European security team arrived in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Tuesday to begin preparations for the expected influx European troops that will provide peacekeeping support.

Eight prisoners, including American John Walker, were moved from the USS Peleliu to the USS Bataan on Monday, U.S. officials said.

President Bush has appointed Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, a top-ranking Muslim in the U.S. government, as special envoy to Afghanistan.

At some 200 vaccination centers across Afghanistan, U.N. officials began an effort to immunize 9 million Afghan children against measles in a project it hopes will prevent 35,000 deaths from the disease each year.

ABCNEWS' Bill Blakemore in Kandahar, Afghanistan, ABCNEWS Radio, and Martha Raddatz and Rebecca Cooper in Washington contributed to this report.

To see more on this story, go to http://www.ABCNews.go.com

Copyright 2001 ABCNEWS.com.

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