SHARJAH, 2 November 2004 — Indian security agencies have launched a US-backed operation to hunt for Osama Bin Laden near the borders with China and Pakistan, sources in New Delhi said yesterday.
The sources confirmed that the operation was launched after the visit of a senior Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent.
The US support for the hunt for Bin Laden is mostly in the form of satellite-based intelligence, said the sources. The FBI offered its agents to join the operation, but India did not accept the offer, said the sources.
The FBI agent came to India on Oct. 24 after an Indian Air Force reconnaissance plane reportedly spotted Bin Laden in mid-October in the Tibet-Laddakh region close to the northeastern corner of Pakistan bordering India and China.
Sometime between Oct.17 and Oct. 19, the reconnaissance plane spotted a 10-vehicle convoy of black Japanese minivans in that area. The plane called in additional surveillance aircraft with sophisticated equipment and the second plane identified the convoy as belonging to Bin Laden.
The surveillance planes took aerial shots and passed them on to experts, who positively identified Bin Laden as one of the travelers in the convoy. Indian intelligence passed on the information to the FBI. Four of the vehicles turned up again on Oct.22 heading east toward the Chinese border, according to the source. Again, Indian Air Force reconnaissance planes took photographs and affirmed that Bin Laden was among the travelers in the convoy. Yesterday, an Indian news agency, IANS, quoted defense sources as saying that the report of the spotting was “highly exaggerated.” The agency confirmed the visit of the FBI officials and said he met officers of the Research and Analysis Wing, Intelligence Bureau, Border Security Force and Indo-Tibetan Border Police and warned that Bin Laden might sneak into India through the border.
The FBI official questioned the Indian intelligence officers aboard the surveillance planes who reportedly saw the Al-Qaeda chief leave his minivan several times. Subsequently, Washington requested the Indian government to put its security forces in the northwestern region on alert and gear up troops for combing operations. India met the request and deployed expert hunters supported by hi-tech communication and surveillance equipment in the region, particularly the Kargil-Leh Highway and along the Tibetan border, according to the source.
Earlier reports said Bin Laden was spotted on the Lingzi Thang Plain on the Tibetan border in June. It is assumed that Bin Laden might be waiting out in the winter either in Hunza province in the northern frontier of Indian Kashmir or Little Pamir where Tajik tribes hold the sway. Little Pamir is located between China and Tajikistan where Russian special forces taking part in the Bin Laden hunt are deployed.
Intelligence reports say that Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahri had prepared hideouts in the mountain peaks in the area even before the Sept.11 attacks. There are also hideouts built by the Russians in Little Pamir, where they had deployed missiles in the 1970s pointed at China. However, the cold and harsh conditions of the terrain forced them to quit the area in the 1980s. A report last month said Bin Laden could be hiding among China’s Uighur Muslims under an understanding with Beijing that he would help keep down the Uighur revolt for autonomy.
