Town of Braintree

With the whole of Afghanistan in the hands of anti-Taliban forces and accessible to United States ground forces, the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and the leadership of his Al-Qaeda network remains a mystery.

The US were led a merry dance in the Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan, being duped by mercenary local commanders into believing that thousands of Al-Qaeda fighters, as well as bin Laden, were holed up in caves in the mountains. (See Taliban's trail leads to Pakistan, Dec 13)

Of course, bin Laden was not sitting patiently waiting to greet the US troops when they and their local allies finally overran the region, the last pocket of resistance in the country. Instead, they found only a few hundred Al-Qaeda fighters and a number of women and children. Bin Laden and the ''thousands'' had already slipped into the Pakistan tribal areas, the US were told by the conniving commanders.

However, extensive investigations indicate that bin Laden has crossed the southwest border into Iran, where he is being sheltered by dissident Iranian guerrilla fighters of the Mujahideen-i-Khalq, a group with strong Iraqi links and which is outlawed as a terrorist organization by the United States. Interviews with Pakistani jihadi who fought in Afghanistan, journalists and intelligence sources support this view.

Drawing on the combined information of these sources, it appears that even before September 11 bin Laden changed his location within Afghanistan every few days, shuttling between Jalalabad, Kandahar and Kabul. In Jalalabad alone he had a number of places to live. The former governor of Nangarhar and now the governor of the eastern provinces, Haji Abdul Qadeer, provided him with costly residences.

Soon after September 11, the US demanded that the Taliban hand over bin Laden. Later, it expanded its demand to include the handover of the entire leadership of Al-Qaeda, and subsequently it said that it would attack Afghanistan to break the entire Al-Qaeda network. These demands strongly suggested to the Taliban leadership that US President George W Bush was obsessed with attacking Afghanistan regardless of whether they arranged for bin Laden to escape from the country or not.

At this stage bin Laden remained in Kabul, in a center for Arab fighters. That was the time when diplomatic efforts were under way to reach a peaceful settlement in handing over bin Laden. Having rejected the US demands, Taliban leader Mullah Omar decided to keep bin Laden in a secret place known only to a handful of people. He was hidden along with a small number of Arab bodyguards and his confidante, Egyptian Dr Aimen Al-Zawari and senior members of Al-Qaeda.

The manner in which messages and video tapes featuring bin Laden were delivered in Kabul to the Al-Jazeera television network and some newspapers indicates that he was not too far from Kabul. Many of the sources speculated that in the first 10 days of the war he was holed up in Bamiyan, home to the famous ancient giant buddhas until they were destroyed by the Taliban earlier this year.



By The Southwest Border into Iran

BIN LADEN HAS ACCESS TO NUKES

It appears that Iran is about to get away with another dangerous Muslim deception of the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency and our stellar European ''Allies.''

Of course, it's easy to deceive someone who really doesn't want to face the truth. I must also include the liberal American politicians in this group. Yet there are certain facts that are hard to dismiss. First, the rogue Muslim nations of the Middle East have been hell-bent upon obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons for decades. ---------------By Hal Lindsey

Iraq would have them already if Israel had not bombed their Osirak nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981. The reactor was just days from being stocked with nuclear fuel, which would have made it impossible to attack without killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, ''The atomic bombs which that reactor was capable of producing, whether from enriched uranium or from plutonium, would be of the Hiroshima size. Thus, a mortal danger to the people of Israel progressively arose.''

Second, it was reported to me in April of 1991 by a high-ranking officer of Israel's Mossad that he had personally verified a secret agreement made between Russia and Iran in February of 1991. I was sworn to secrecy until this was made public some six months later.

The essence of the agreement was this: Iran pledged to Russia that it would not interfere in any way with the Islamic republics that had been part of the old Soviet Union. Russia greatly feared Islamic fundamentalism being spread into these states. Chechnya proved their fears were well-founded. It is important to observe that Iran, contrary to their usual policy, did not interfere with heavy Russian attacks on Chechnya. They kept their agreement.

In exchange, Russia pledged to furnish Iran with some of its world-class nuclear and missile scientists. These were to be paid a befitting salary and necessary equipment was to be bought from Russia. The first 273 of the scientists arrived in Iran in late February of 1991. They, plus others, have continued to work on helping Iran develop its own nuclear-weapons program. I have reported on this many times since late 1991.

Iran will probably get away with its clever cover-up of an all-out pursuit of nuclear weapons. And Russia will continue to help them. This is a development I have been warning about since 1958. I wrote about it in the ''Late Great Planet Earth'' in 1969.

The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel predicted that Persia (modern Iran) will be the leading Muslim power that will join with Russia in an attack against Israel that will start the war of Armageddon. Everything is continuing to fit into that predicted pattern. So if you ever plan to get right with God, this would be a very good time!

AND BIN LADEN IS IN IRAN AND HAS ACCESS TO NUKES, NOW, I WONDER
WHAT HE WOULD DO WITH A FEW?


By BIN LADEN IS IN IRAN

Lack of Proper Religious Authori


Even if bin Laden had a nuclear weapon, he probably wouldn't have used it for a lack of proper religious authority - authority he has now. ''[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans,'' ''[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would mean you could kill millions of Americans,''

Bin Laden was criticized by some Muslims for the 9/11 attack because he killed so many people without enough warning and before offering to help convert them to Islam. But now bin Laden has addressed the American people and given fair warning. ''They're intention is to end the war as soon as they can and to ratchet up the pain for the Americans until we get out of their region....If they acquire the weapon, they will use it, whether it's chemical, biological or some sort of nuclear weapon,''..


And the threat posed by bin Laden is also underestimated, ''I think our leaders over the last decade have done the American people a disservice...continuing to characterize Osama bin Laden as a thug, as a gangster,'' ''Until we respect him, sir, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary, yes. He's a very, very talented man and a very worthy opponent,''



By Secured From a Saudi Sheik

Bordering On Nukes,---Mexico?

New accounts from al-Qaeda to attack the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction

A key al-Qaeda operative seized in Pakistan recently offered an alarming account of the group's potential plans to target the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction, senior U.S. security officials Sharif al-Masri, an Egyptian who was captured in late August near Pakistan's border with Iran and in Afghanistan, has told his interrogators of ''al-Qaeda's interest in moving nuclear materials from Europe to either the U.S. or Mexico,'' according to a report circulating among U.S. government officials.

Masri also said al-Qaeda has considered plans to ''smuggle nuclear materials to Mexico, then operatives would carry material into the U.S.,'' according to the report, Masri says his family, seeking refuge from al-Qaeda hunters, ------is now in Iran------so is Bin Laden----.

Masri's account, though unproved, has added to already heightened U.S. concerns about Mexico. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met publicly with top Mexican officials last week to discuss border security and smuggling rings that could be used to slip al-Qaeda terrorists into the country.

Weeks prior to Ridge's lightning visit, U.S. and Mexican intelligence conferred about reports from several al-Qaeda detainees indicating the potential use of Mexico as a staging area ''to acquire end-stage chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material.'' U.S. officials have begun to keep a closer eye on heavy-truck traffic across the border.

The Mexicans will also focus on flight schools and aviation facilities on their side of the frontier. And another episode has some senior U.S. officials worried: the theft of a crop-duster aircraft south of San Diego, apparently by three men from southern Mexico who assaulted a watchman and then flew off in a southerly direction.

Though the theft's connection to terrorism remains unclear, a senior U.S. law-enforcement official notes that crop dusters can be used to disperse toxic substances. The plane, stolen at night two weeks ago, has not been recovered.


By Sharif al-Masri, an Egyptian