PRNewswire
Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2003

At the meeting bin Laden said he was working on "serious projects," another ranking Taliban source tells Newsweek. "His priority is to use biological weapons," says the source, who claims that Al Qaeda already has such weapons. The question is only how to transport and launch them, he asserts.

The source insists he doesn't know any further details, but brags: "Osama's next step will be unbelievable."

The plan was reported delayed and revised after the March capture of Al Qaeda's operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. U.S. intelligence officials say no one disputes bin Laden's interest in germ warfare.

Nevertheless, they argue, his main priority is to kill Americans by any means readily at hand-and most bioweapons are harder to get and use than many of the alternatives, report Bangkok Bureau Chief Ron Moreau, on assignment in Pakistan, and Special Correspondent Sami Yousafzai in the September 8 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands on Monday, September 1).

Two years after the September 11 attacks, the world's Most Wanted terrorist remains free. "We don't know where he is," U.S. Army Col. Rodney Davis, spokesman for America's forces in Afghanistan, tells Newsweek. "And frankly, it's not about him. We'll continue to focus on killing, capturing and denying sanctuary to any anti-Coalition forces, whether they are influenced by bin Laden or not."

Some U.S. officials speculate that life on the run has made it impossible for bin Laden to communicate with his followers, effectively turning him into a figurehead. "Bin Laden's operational role is not as important as it was to Al Qaeda and Taliban," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Kabul. "But symbolically he is still very important."

But the senior Taliban officials contacted by Newsweek say bin Laden remains directly engaged as a strategist and financier for Al Qaeda, the Taliban and related groups. One man, named Khan Kaka, who lives in Afghanistan's remote Kunar province, tells Newsweek that since 1996 his son-in-law, an Algerian named Abu Hamza al Jazeeri, has been a special bodyguard to bin Laden, whom Kaka calls loar sheik -- "big chief."

'Like Lightning'

Every two months or so, al Jazeeri comes down from the mountains to visit his wife and three sons, who live with Kaka. "He appears and disappears like lightning," Kaka tells Newsweek. "I never know when he's coming or going."

The old man and his neighbors listen eagerly to the latest news from the Qaeda leader's hideout. On a visit in January al Jazeeri reported that one of bin Laden's daughters-in-law had recently died in childbirth, and that bin Laden spoke to her funeral, blaming America for her death. Only a few dozen mourners could attend, not the thousands who would ordinarily pay their last respects.

Bin Laden blamed America for that, too. "I had enough riches to enjoy myself like an Arab sheikh," bin Laden said, according to al Jazeeri's account. "But I decided to fight against those infidel forces that want to sever us from our Islamic roots. For that cause, Arabs, Taliban and my family have been martyred."

Kaka and his neighbors have memorized the eulogy, Newsweek reports. Asked where bin Laden is now, he grins and waves without a word toward the 12,000-foot peaks surrounding the valley: up there.

Bin Laden seems to be in good health, according to both a former Taliban deputy foreign minister and an Afghan named Haroon, who claims to have visited the Qaeda leader in June. Three of bin Laden's sons are said to be with him, sworn to kill their father rather than let him be captured alive.

Two of his wives are said to be living nearby in the mountains, but not with him; he visits them when security allows, Newsweek reports. Taliban sources say the Qaeda leader communicates with his friends and followers via handwritten letters and computer disks delivered by relays of messengers.

Each carrier knows only where to find the next link in the chain. The system is slow, but it keeps the Americans from using electronic intercepts to find him.

Newsweek also recounts Haroon's journey to see bin Laden. Haroon is active in the Taliban's anti-U.S. resistance, and he had guided bin Laden from the besieged cave complex at Tora Bora to safety in the Shahikot Valley during the U.S. bombing in late 2001. (Newsweek reported on the escape in "How Al Qaeda Slipped Away," in the August 19, 2002 issue). The month after sending his request to see bin Laden, Haroon got a message directing him to a place in the mountains north of his home in Paktia province.

From there, he was taken higher into the mountains by a series of guides, each one greeting the next with a whispered password. After three days he was turned over to a group of Arabs. They strip-searched him, placed his ring, watch and shoes in a bag and closely inspected the buttons on his shirt, Newsweek reports.

He spent the night barefoot in a nearby cave. At sunrise two armed Arabs, their faces covered by scarves, escorted him to an old mud-and-rock house and told him to sit there and wait. Haroon says he felt afraid. Suddenly bin Laden arrived and spoke in Arabic, slowly and quietly, urging the young man to keep fighting.

"The deserts of Afghanistan are being irrigated with the blood of mujahedin," he told Haroon. "But the jihad will never dry up." After about 15 minutes the visit ended. "Please don't try to see me again," bin Laden said.

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