Laden on death bed, claim CIA officials

Washington, July 2 : Two officials of the US' intelligence agency CIA have claimed that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was on death bed as he suffered from a terminal kidney disease, and may live only for a few months.

The intelligence agency also managed to get the names of some of the medications Bin Laden was taking.

One of the two CIA officials familiar with the report that came out six-nine months ago, quoted it as saying, "Based on his current pharmaceutical intake we would expect that he has no more than 6-18 months to live and impending kidney failure."

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was the first person to claim that Laden suffered from kidney disease and was on dialysis.

"It's trying to make a diagnosis from thousands of miles away with only fragments of the medical chart," the Time magazine quoted Paul Pillar, the former top analyst and deputy director of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre, as saying.

Frances Fragos Townsend, who was chief of the White House Homeland Security Council said, "I've read all the same conflicting reports that people have talked to you about. I never found one set of reporting more persuasive than another."

ANI