Bin Laden died last April?

Al Jazeera Magazine | January 18 2006

Just six days after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH was unequivocal about BIN LADEN, suggesting that America wants him dead or alive.

But the AMERICAN PRESIDENT's vow remains unfulfilled, and no one seems to know what happened to the world's most wanted man.

"He may be alive," BUSH was quoted as saying the summer following the attacks. "If he is, we'll get him. If he's not alive, we got him."

OSAMA BIN LADEN is possibly dead, or at least seriously incapacitated, a Canberra-based expert as recently suggested.

The terrorism expert says that he has seen evidence showing AL QAEDA leader Osama bin Laden, who is accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon building in the U.S. - had died in Pakistan last April.- He also said that if he’s not dead he could be seriously ill.

Morning Herald quoted Dr. Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, as saying that documents received from an Indian intelligence officer, whom he would not identify, suggested that AL QAEDA chief died of massive organ failure in April last year.

"It does seem reasonably convincing based on the evidence that I've been provided with that he's certainly either severely incapacitated or dead at this stage," Dr. Williams said.

However, Dr. Williams said proving whether BIN LADEN was dead or still alive might be impossible.

"It's hard to prove or disprove these things because there hasn't really been anything that allows you to make a judgment one way or the other," Dr. Williams said.

Conflicting reports have been circulating the past few days about whether Doctor and surgeon AYMAN AL ZAWAHRI, Al Qaeda's second man was killed in a recent deadly U.S. strike targeting a Pakistani border village which claimed the lives of scores of civilians. But it turned out that AL ZAWAHRI wasn’t killed in Friday attack.

AL QAEDA's No. 2 leader was invited to a dinner on the night of the devastating U.S. missile strike in Pakistan’s border, but he did not show up, he sent some of his aides instead, and investigators are trying to establish if any of them were among the at least 17 people killed in the attack.

"But it does seem strange that Dr. AL ZAWAHRI has been making all of the statements since then, and nothing's been heard from Bin Laden since, I think, the December of the year before," Dr. Williams said.

There's also the question of how long an ill man like BIN LADEN, who suffered from a kidney disease, would survive in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where Washington claims he’s hiding with his deputy AYMAN AL ZAWAHRI and other senior members of the network.

"[From] reports that I have read of people who went to meet with him while he has been on the run, his diet was very frugal and they certainly weren't living very comfortably ... so it doesn't seem to me that unlikely that BIN LADEN could have suffered major organ failure and died."

Even if he’s dead, it will be almost impossible for Western authorities to prove it.

"It may simply be that we don't hear much about BIN LADEN again ... [or] he may pop up again in six months' time and make a new statement, at which case, of course, we will go back to Square1."

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