Osama bin Laden escorted by the Black Guard. Click image to view.
Since September 11, the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been fodder for the rumor mill. Bin Laden sightings pop up now and then, but the rumors have never been substantiated. Since bin Laden fled the fighting in Tora Bora in 2001, U.S. intelligence has had few leads to follow up on. But bin Laden is widely believed to be operating in Pakistan's rugged tribal regions of the Northwest Frontier Province.
The latest rumor comes from Ahmad Farooq, a Pakistani Pashtun Taliban fighter, who claimed to have last seen bin Laden in the Chitral district of the Northwest Frontier Province in September of 2003. Farooq's story cannot be substantiated, but he claimed bin Laden traveled with a small detachment of bodyguards and spent time in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and China. Adnkronos International reports:
Ahmad Farooq, a Pakistani Pashtun has told the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, that bin Laden had been moving from village to village in the area from Chitral to the "corridor of Waqan", the mountainous Hindu Kush region of Pakistan bordering Tajikstan and China.
Farooq told the Italian daily's magazine, that bin Laden was surrounded by about 20 armed men and he moved whenever he felt particularly threatened. "There are always 20 armed men with him, free from satellite telephones so that they did not risk detection by the Americans," he told the newspaper. "Not far from him there are two other similar groups that move in parallel. Osama passes from one to the other often many times in a week. No-one knows which group he is with at any time."
Farooq said bin Laden had also managed to hide in the Pakistan-China border area of Karakorum, an uninhabited remote area, because it is guarded by Chinese troops.
"He lives like a monk," Farooq said. "His health is not good. He is 50 years old. But he looks much older. He relies continutally on medicine for his weak kidneys and has a breathing apparatus. He almost died a few years ago from bronchitis that developed into pneumonia."
Farooq gave many details about where bin Laden had been since September 11 2001 - hiding in the Afghan province of Khost until it became too dangerous for him. Then, he said, the al-Qaeda leader moved to the Chitral region, in northern Pakistan.
"I saw him for the last time on 17 September 2003 not far from Dir, my village, " he said. "His caravan was moving slowly. They told me he was not well. They didn't seem worried about being detected by the Americans.
"Instead, they were looking for medicines and a warm place for the night. In that area winter arrives early. With the first snow fall the passes are closed at more than 4,000 metres and you have to wait for spring. I think they only went to China in summer, when the paths are clear."
A senior official from NATO's security services told the Italian daily's magazine such an account of bin Laden's activities was "quite possible". He said "We believe he remained in the mountains in the zones of Chitral and Swat. The detail about China was however new."
Again, Farooq's story cannot be substantiated, but it does track with a slew of rumors about bin Laden during the same time period. His health has been a constant issue of debate. At the time bin Laden was believed to have be ‘living in caves' and on the run. Due to bin Laden's failure to appear in video or audio propaganda during the time, some believed he was gravely ill or even dead.
