By Sayed Salahuddin1 hour, 15 minutes ago
Osama bin Laden was provided safe passage to Pakistan in 2001 by Afghan commanders paid by al Qaeda and sympathetic to its cause, a senior Afghan official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Lutfullah Mashal, Afghanistan's Interior Ministry spokesman, said commanders helped the al Qaeda leader escape from the Tora Bora mountains as U.S. warplanes and Afghan forces attacked his hideout near the Pakistan border in late 2001.
"The help was provided because of monetary aid availed by al Qaeda and also partly because of ideological issues," Mashal said.
"Osama along with other al Qaeda people managed to go to Parachinar (in Pakistan) at the time and then Pakistani forces battled the al Qaeda runaways, killing around 70 of them," Mashal added, referring to an area in Pakistan's Kurram tribal agency.
He said commanders loyal to Maulvi Yunus Khalis had helped the al Qaeda leader escape. The whereabouts of Khalis, a top mujahideen leader from the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, is unknown.
Mashal told private Pakistani television channel Geo on Tuesday that U.S. forces made a mistake in entrusting the capture of bin Laden to Afghan commanders.
Mashal said he was present in the Tora Bora mountains during the December 2001 operation, and that while U.S. forces were not there in uniform, green berets in plain clothes, some disguised in Uzbek style dress were present.
He said that while 800 or 900 Arabs fled Tora Bora for Pakistan's Khyber tribal agency, senior al Qaeda leaders trekked across to Parachinar on foot, mule and horseback with the help of some Sulemankheil tribal elders.
Mashal said bin Laden later re-crossed the border to Khost where Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani gave him refuge, before returning to Pakistan, this time heading for Miranshah, the main town in another tribal agency, North Waziristan.
Mashal said he had gone to Pakistan himself, searching for bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri in camps of al Qaeda militants at Parachinar, Shawal, Daddakheil and Miranshah.
"I visited all the camps, where there were Chechens, Uzbeks, but I was not able to find clues about the whereabouts of Osama or al-Zawahri," he told Geo.
Mashal suspected the al Qaeda leader was still moving around Pakistan's tribal lands, guarded by Taliban and Arab fighters.
"His exact location is not clear for he changes his location and is on the move ... He is guarded by Haqqani's men and Yemenis."
U.S. officials have repeatedly said bin Laden, who has evaded a U.S.-led manhunt since the September 11, 2001, attacks, is probably still hiding in the rugged mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The United States invaded Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden, blamed for the attacks on U.S. cities, and overthrew the Taliban in late 2001.
London-based Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, quoting a U.S. officer in Afghanistan, said on Wednesday bin Laden was in poor health and was seeking medical attention.
Al-Hayat said it was not clear how the U.S. military had obtained its information or where it thought bin Laden might be.
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