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6 March 2004 |  |
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News,
Views, & Analysis Governments,
Lobbies, & the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know
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"The most honest, the
most comprehensive
and most mobilizing
news and analysis on the Middle East always comes from MER. It is indispensable!" - Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain
Canadian
Documentary Describes Life With Bin Laden
TORONTO (AP - 5 March) -- Osama bin Laden likes poetry and volleyball, had squabbles with his children, and banned any American conveniences like ice and soft drinks, according to a Canadian TV documentary on a family that had close ties to the al-Qaida leader until 2001. The program showed a softer side of the world's No. 1 fugitive, but it also reflected his fundamentalist Islamic attitudes toward women and his terrorist war against the United States. The show's main interview subject, Abdurahman Khadr, said he was captured in Afghanistan and worked for a time with the CIA, FBI and the U.S. military. Khadr said his father, Ahmed Said, dragged the whole family into the world of al-Qaida by moving them into bin Laden's compound. Abdurahman Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian who returned to Canada last year, described bin Laden as "a normal human being'' during the two-part show Wednesday on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "He has issues with his wife and he has issues with his kids. Financial issues, you know. The kids aren't listening, the kids aren't doing this and that,'' Khadr said. The Khadr family, including Ahmed Said - a suspected terrorist and al-Qaida founder who was killed last year in Pakistan - lived from 1996 to 2001 in the same compound as bin Laden, his four wives and family near Jalalabad in Afghanistan. Bin Laden spent several hours a day with his children, playing volleyball or encouraging them to read poetry. He awarded them horses when they learned the Quran by heart. Women in the household, however, had ``lots of restrictions, where they go, when they go, where they come, when they come, who visits to them and how long you can stay in their house and all that,'' said Abdurahman Khader's sister, Zaynab. The Kadrs said bin Laden forbade the use of American products, as well as ice, cold water and electricity, and lived in mud huts. "He never jokes, very quiet person, very polite. Can be a saint, something like a saint. I see him as a very peaceful man,'' said a brother, Abdullah. High-tech snooping for bin Laden
WASHINGTON (CNN - 5 March) -- U.S. forces searching for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan will soon implement high-tech surveillance tactics in the region, enabling them to monitor the area 24 hours a day, seven days a week, CNN has learned. It's believed that the constant surveillance of the border region and the "squeeze play" by U.S. and Pakistani forces surrounding the mountainous frontier will present the best chance ever to net the world's most-wanted terrorist. Bin Laden has eluded capture since U.S. troops launched a search for him in late 2001. Top administration officials believe bin Laden may begin to feel the heat from the troops now hunting him and might start to move. "We are putting the pieces in place to throw the net over him," one official told CNN. Among the devices that will be in place within days are U-2 spy planes flying at 70,000 feet, taking pictures, using radar and intercepting communications. Unmanned Predator drones, flying closer at 25,000 feet, are equipped with cameras that can spot vehicles and people and special radar that can operate through clouds. Some of the Predators may also carry Hellfire missiles. Ground sensors may also be placed along mountain passes to listen for vehicles. Data from the planes and sensors will be sent via satellite to analysts for quick action. The U.S. military has bought up satellite transmission capacity in the region, to ensure it can respond quickly. But none of the measures are being acknowledged officially. "Of course you've heard and seen in the press that Osama bin Laden is surrounded, we have him cornered and we know where he is, etc., etc. And of course, we don't know that," said Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, in an interview with PBS' Jim Lehrer. Abizaid added that there are no U.S. troops on Pakistani soil, and said U.S. efforts with the Pakistanis are focused on cooperation and coordination. When asked if he thought bin Laden would be captured this year, the general said he had no way of knowing. But, he said, "I think that we will make it very painful for al Qaeda between now and the end of the year."
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