Taleban: Bin Laden Missing

February 14, 1999 - 0:0
TEHRAN Alleged Saudi terrorist Osama Bin Laden has gone missing and his whereabouts are unknown, a spokesman for Afghanistan's ruling Taleban militia said Saturday. About Sheikh Osama, we just heard today that he has gone missing and we have no idea if he is still in Afghanistan or left the country. But we have not forced him out, Taleban spokesman Tayeb Khan, said from Kandahar. Saturday's statement comes after the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) Wednesday reported that the Taleban had banned Bin Laden from accepting visitors or having outside contact.

Osama Bin Laden has been disallowed to meet any visitors or other people, the Pakistan-based private information service said, quoting a decree issued by the office of Taleban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. All communication equipment including his telephone and radio had been withdrawn, AIP reported. Bin Laden has been accused by the United States of masterminding the U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam on August 7 last year that left more than 200 people dead.

On Tuesday the AIP reported Taleban comments stating Bin Laden was free to leave Afghanistan, but he would not be forced out. The decision was taken by the Taleban leadership after considering the latest U.S. request for Bin Laden to be expelled, Taleban spokesman Abdul Mutmaen told the Pakistan-based private information service. Osama Bin Laden can leave Afghanistan if he wishes to and we will have no objection.

But the Taleban will never force him to leave the country, Mutmaen said. He said the Taleban was still waiting for evidence to support allegations Bin Laden was a terrorist mastermind. It is an injustice to exert pressure on the Afghan government without furnishing any proof, Mutmaen said. According to another news, a member of the Afghan Taleban militia was killed and his uncle injured in an armed attack by rivals in Pakistan's troubled port city of Karachi, police sources said Saturday. A teenage Afghan national, Qadeer Khan, and his uncle were attacked Friday as they sat with laborers in the city's Central Federal B Area on Friday, police said.

Both arrived here from Afghanistan late last year. Four armed men, three of them masked, opened fire on Khan and his uncle and fled the scene, leaving them in a pool of blood, the sources said.