US, UK teams search quake rubble for Osama Bin Laden

Thursday, October 20, 2005

* MI6/SAS team joins US Special Forces sifting through Balakot

PESHAWAR: An MI6/SAS team has joined US Special Forces in earthquake-devastated Balakot to search for Osama Bin Laden among thousands of victims still buried, British newspaper the Sunday Express reports.

US President George W Bush approved a full-scale surveillance operation along the remote Afghan-Pakistan border where extremists have training camps. The team, flown in from a high-security base in Afghanistan, is equipped with imagery and eavesdropping technology, high-tech weapons systems and MI6 linguists to try to locate the most wanted “terrorist” in the world.

Bin Laden has a $20 million bounty on his head. Security officers in London and Washington are anxious not to discuss whether Bin Laden is dead or has escaped the devastation from the 7.6-magnitude earthquake. But days before it struck, an American satellite had spotted an Al Qaeda training camp in a remote area and obtained high-resolution close-ups.

A senior intelligence officer in Washington told the Sunday Express: “One of those photos bore a remarkable resemblance to Bin Laden. His face looked thinner, which is in keeping with our reports that his kidney condition has worsened.”

In recent weeks, both MI6 and the CIA have established that Bin Laden has received a portable kidney dialysis machine from China but it requires electricity to power it. Drones, unmanned aircraft that US Special Forces launched from Afghanistan last week, have reported that the area along the border has lost all power supplies. President Bush, who has said he wants Bin Laden ‘dead or alive’, is closely monitoring the operation.

While American aid – Black Hawk helicopters and heavy lifting equipment – has been flown into Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf has agreed to keep the other rescue teams working to locate survivors away from the border area where the search for Bin Laden is concentrated.

One Washington terrorism expert, Bruce Hoffman at the Rand Corporation, said that if Bin Laden had managed to escape the earthquake, he might have made his way to the disputed Kashmir region. There is also the possibility that he could have made his way back to the Toba Kakar Range in Afghanistan. But veteran CIA officer Milt Bearden said: “If Bin Laden is dead, the world will never know. We just have to wait until somebody drags out his body and says; This is Bin Laden. My bet is that won’t happen.” nni

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