WASHINGTON, 10 October 2005 — No evidence suggests that the deadly earthquake that rocked Pakistan on Saturday injured or killed the world’s top terror leader, Osama Bin Laden.
The quake shook the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Bin Laden is believed to be hiding. However, authorities at this point have no information indicating he’s been injured or killed, said a US official.
Bin Laden guided the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks aimed at New York City and Washington.
US hopes for Bin Laden’s death or capture were high in December 2001, when US and Afghan troops surrounded a cave complex sheltering Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region. But Bin Laden escaped and is now believed to be living a relatively isolated existence to evade capture.
He was last seen publicly on a videotaped message before the November 2004 elections.
Meanwhile, scores of activists from an Islamist charity linked to a banned Pakistani militant organization died in the devastating earthquake.
The militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was outlawed by Pakistan in January 2002, a month after its fighters were accused of taking part in an attack on India’s Parliament in New Delhi.
A spokesman for Jamat-ud-Dawa, a group drawn from the ranks of Lashkar, said the charity’s mosques, hospitals, schools and seminaries were obliterated in Saturday’s earthquake. “Many of our members have been killed. They are in scores while several others are still trapped under the rubble,” the spokesman said yesterday.
