ASSEMBLY POLL '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS '98
ARCHIVES

Osama Bin Laden was in Pakistan

Saudi Arabian fugitive Osama bin Laden visited Peshawar sometime in late November as a guest of a senior government official, reliable sources have indicated.

It was the time when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief was pushing for passage of the Shariat Bill and addressing public meetings in the North-West Frontier Province, promising Taliban-style Islamic justice in Pakistan.

The sources said bin Laden wasn't given permission to attend a Jamaat-i-Islami public meeting, however. The government tried to stop the meeting since the Jamaat had criticised Sharief's Shariat Bill and is campaigning for an alternative Islamic rule.

Bin Laden, however, did meet a number of religious leaders, these sources said.

The reports get credibility from the fact that police raided guest houses in Lahore and Islamabad to arrest bin Laden, whom the United States holds responsible for the bombings of its diplomatic missions in east Africa last August which killed 223 people.

The raids were conducted soon after Sharief's visit to Washington.

During Sharief's visit, President Bill Clinton had asked for Pakistan's help in arresting bin Laden. Implicit in this request was the American belief that the Arab was in Pakistan.

Jung columnist Irshad Haqni, quoting informed sources, observes that Clinton invited Sharief to Washington mainly to tell him about US concerns about bin Laden and Afghanistan.

"The United States has told us not only to assist in the arrest of Osama bin Laden but also, as Secretary of State Madeline Albright said, cut off our relations with the Taliban," he wrote.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report