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Osama Bin Laden has fallen out with Taliban, says US

Suspected terrorist Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, his protectors in Afghanistan, have fallen out, raising the possibility that his days of refuge may be numbered, says the New York Times, quoting senior American officials.

Three American officials and two Taliban representatives said a fight broke out three weeks ago in Afghanistan between Bin Laden's bodyguards and a group of Taliban officers assigned to keep a watch on him.

After the fight, the officials said, Bin Laden was expelled from Kandahar, where he had taken refuge with his family. He was isolated in the countryside and was stripped of his satellite telephones that, American officials said, allowed him to contact fellow radicals throughout the world. His whereabouts are not known.

"There is friction between him and the Taliban," one senior American official said. "They have tried to constrain him for the first time, and tried to limit his communications.

"It's a good sign,'' he said, indicating that Bin Laden, a Saudi exile indicted on charges of masterminding the deadly bombings of two American embassies in Africa in August, may have worn out his welcome with the Taliban, the armed religious movement that has sheltered him since 1996.

The Taliban has shown no sign that it is willing to deliver Bin Laden to the United States. But one official said the Taliban had sent a clear signal that its desire to continue protecting Bin Laden is waning.

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