Bin Laden overseeing Iraq, Afghan ops: Taliban

Dubai, Apr 26: Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is orchestrating militants' operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Taliban commander said in remarks broadcast today.

Bin Laden has not made any video statements for many months raising speculation that he might have died.

''He is drawing plans in Iraq and Afghanistan ... Praise God he is alive,'' Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television.

In September, a French newspaper quoted French foreign intelligence service as saying the Saudi intelligence were convinced bin Laden had died of typhoid in Pakistan in August.

Dadullah said bin Laden ordered the attack on February 27 at the US Bagram base during a visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney to Afghanistan.

''Do you remember the martyrdom operation inside the Bagram base which targeted a senior American official ... this operation was the result of blessed plans put by him,'' Dadullah said. Jazeera said the US official Dadullah was referring to was Cheney.

''He (bin Laden) guided us through it,'' he said, adding that no Afghan would have been able to penetrate the base if it was not for the world's most wanted militant.

Asked for reaction to Dadullah's assertion that bin Laden ordered the Bagram attack, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters: ''It's an interesting claim but I haven't seen any intelligence that would support that.'' About 14 people were killed, including one American and one South Korean soldier in the suicide bombing, which militants said targeted Cheney. A US official then said Cheney was about half a mile away on the base and was not in danger.

The Taliban were toppled in 2001 by a US-led coalition for refusing to hand over leaders of al Qaeda after the group's September 11 attacks on US cities.

Dadullah gave no further details about the role bin Laden was playing in operations in the two countries where the United States deploys troops.

A senior Afghan security official had said yesterday that Afghan and NATO troops had surrounded more than 200 Taliban in the southern province of Uruzgan and Dadullah might be among them.

But NATO forces were not involved in the operation, a NATO spokeswoman today said, and an Afghan politician from the region said he doubted that Dadullah had been surrounded.

Reuters>