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'Bin Landen lives' - in silence
29/12/2005 10:06 - (SA)
Paris - Osama bin Laden has not issued any public statement all year.
Speculation has grown about his influence, health and even possible death. Where is the Western world's most-wanted man?
The Al-Qaeda leader's period of silence is the longest since the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States, offering no clues to the whereabouts or fate of a man who appears this year to have quietly slipped off the radar.
Bin Laden has not been heard of since a December 27 2004 audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most-wanted man, as Al-Qaeda's leader in the war-torn country.
Just before, on December 16 2004, a video surfaced on which he also called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders they risked a popular uprising.
Since then - silence.
Regular interventions by Al-Qaeda No 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, seen as the ideological brains of the network, has served only to feed feverish speculation about what has happened to bin Laden.
Bin Laden 'still leads jihad'
Zawahiri claimed in an videotape released in September that bin Laden was still alive and leading "jihad" or holy war against the West.
"Al-Qaeda for holy war is still, thanks to God, a base for jihad. Its prince, Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, still leads the jihad," said Zawahiri.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said recently he did not know whether bin Laden was dead or alive, adding that he would not like to speculate on his fate.
The commander of United States troops in Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry, has insisted that bin Laden is still considered alive, and that US forces continue their hunt for him.
Seemingly more candid was central intelligence agency director Porter Goss, who recently told ABC news channel that bin Laden's hideout was known and implied that the CIA knew more than it could reveal.
The total eclipse of bin Laden also gave rise to various speculation on Islamist websites, with some admirers of the terror chief already contemplating that he might be dead.
One blogger wrote: "O my beloved. I know that you are mortal. Nobody can oppose the will of God.
Expert confident he's alive
"But the thought of seeing you taken captive fills me with fear," said the blogger in a "letter of affection" addressed online to bin Laden, after a rumour that Al-Qaeda chief had perished in the October 8 earthquake that ravaged Pakistan.
But the editor of the Islamabad-based "Mediawatch", Yaqoub McLintock, who is also an expert on Al-Qaeda, appeared confident as to bin Laden's safety.
"His death would certainly be announced by Al-Qaeda, in conformity with sharia (Islamic law)," he said.
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