The world's most wanted man - Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden - is reportedly surrounded by United States special forces in a mountain range that straddles north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan, a British newspaper reported Sunday.
The paper said that the plan to capture al Qaeda leader would depend on a "grab-him-and-go" operation.
US security sources were quoted by a British paper Sunday as saying that coalition troops have located bin Laden, for the first time since 2001.
The Sunday Express, citing sources, said the al Qaeda chief along with 50 trusted associates was in northwest Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan.
The leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, is also said to be among the fifty.
The Sunday Express reported that bin Laden has been "boxed in" by American and British special forces. However, official US sources declined to comment on the report in the Sunday Express, which ran the front page headline "Bin Laden trapped like a rat."
The Sunday Express cited "two senior American sources" - a senior Republican and an intelligence source and said bin Laden is within a 10 mile by 10 mile area being monitored by an American spy satellite.
Meanwhile, another British newspaper, The Independent, on Sunday quoted Pakistani military and intelligence sources as saying that Pakistan will launch new operations on its Afghan border aimed at cornering al Qaeda activists in the area where Osama bin Laden may be hiding.
However, The Independent continued, Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that to his knowledge, bin Laden has not been "boxed in." "I do not have any such information," Ahmed said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
