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Osama bin Laden vanishes into thin air

Two weeks ago, suspected terrorist Osama Bin Laden disappeared from his refuge in southern Afghanistan. Since then, his whereabouts have been a mystery.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers say they have no idea where he is even though, according to a top Taliban official, he was accompanied by 10 Afghan agents sent to both protect and spy on him.

US authorities, who want Bin Laden in connection with the August 7 bombings that devastated the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, also say they have no idea whether the Saudi national is still in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan nearly five years ago, after Sudan expelled him. His disappearance followed a US missile attack against his training camps on August 21, and Taliban assertions that they were putting pressure on him to rein in his activities.

Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who speaks for Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, says the Taliban sent Bin Laden his escorts on February 10. Some of the escorts worked for the Taliban's interior ministry, a police organisation. Their job was to protect Bin Laden, he said. Others worked for the secret service. Their job was to "spy on him'' and still others worked for the foreign ministry "because he is our foreign guest,'' he said.

On February 13, Mullah Omar announced that Bin Laden had disappeared. As of Sunday, his escorts had not returned to the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar, militia officials claim. Nor is there any sign the escorts have left Afghanistan, they say.

"They were told to go up to a place where he wants to go and where they can go,'' Muttawakil said. "To leave the country would require formalities, passports, visas. I don't think they would have left the country.''

Asked about Bin Laden's whereabouts, Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, said in a written response: "I am saying it with full authority that we have no information... And neither have we received any information about whether he is dead or alive. We did not ask him to leave Afghanistan. He was free to decide whether to stay in Afghanistan or whether to leave the country.''

Asked if the West could be expected to believe the Taliban had no idea where Bin Laden is, foreign ministry spokesman Hajji Fazle Mohammed said: "That's the problem ... The West doesn't trust us and we don't trust the West.''

In Kandahar, a dust-clogged city of 200,000 people where Bin Laden lived only 10 km from Omar, many people believe he is still in the area.

Some believe he has moved only 90 km away, to the relative safety of Islam Dara, a warren of caves and stone barracks used by Afghans who fought against Soviet troops. Concealed in the crevices of the Sheikh Hazrat mountain, the base is protected by land mines and reachable only by a maze of foot paths.

Two weeks before Bin Laden disappeared, scores of Arabs began arriving at Sheikh Hazrat, villagers say.

In a single night they saw 20 minivans and off-road vehicles with their windows blackened, all carrying Arabs and following a dust-covered trail toward Sheikh Hazrat.

"It was clear that they were Osama's people... The people of the village, everyone knew they were Osama's people and then the radio said he was gone,'' said Mohammed Nabi, who operates a ramshackle wheat milling shop in the nearby village of Chinar.

Nabi was not happy at the prospect of playing host to Bin Laden. "Foreigners have destroyed our country,'' he said. "They come here to fight.''

Bin Laden's four wives and an unknown number of children have remained in Kandahar, according to Muttawakil, who said they live near the Kandahar airport in a compound of 300 homes built by Bin Laden to house his Arab followers. The family is not allowed any visitors, Muttawakil added.

The Taliban have refused several US requests to hand over Bin Laden, saying he is a guest and friend. Muttawakil said that on February 10, the Taliban took Bin Laden's satellite telephone and banned him from meeting anyone. "Those were the rules... (he) could not talk to anyone,'' said Muttawakil. "Every human being has the right to discuss his ideas, but we told him he can't even do that.''

What prompted Bin Laden's disappearance?

Many people in Kandahar believe he left because the Taliban had received threats from the US that another missile attack was being readied on Afghanistan.

Muttawakil said the Taliban recently refused an American request to hand Bin Laden to the US, Saudi Arabia or to a third country where he could stand trial, but that there was no direct American threat. He added, however, "it won't be strange if they attack us again ... It's really our fate to be attacked by everyone.''

Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Siddique Kanju said today that the US should talk to the Taliban about Bin Laden.

Washington has been pressing Islamabad, which has consistently supported the radical Islamic movement, to help capture Bin Laden.

''It is not important what the Americans believe about it,'' Kanju was quoted as saying by The Nation daily. ''We have told them that Afghanistan is an independent and sovereign country. I think they are in touch with the Taliban.''

Besides Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the only other countries which recognise the Taliban government. But they have frozen their relations with the Taliban over Bin Laden, a Saudi dissident who has vowed to wage a holy war against the US and its ''vassals.''

UNI

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