Christian Science Monitor: Bin Laden escaped to Pakistan 10 days ago
By Reuters, 12/12/01
BOSTON, -- Osama bin Laden escaped the embattled Tora Bora base to Pakistan 10 days ago with the help of Ghilzi tribesmen, a senior Al Qaeda operative and Saudi financier told the Christian Science Monitor Wednesday.
"Osama bin Laden traveled out of Tora Bora two times in this Ramadan holy month," financier Abu Jaffar told the newspaper.
"He left to meet Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar about three weeks ago and stayed with him near Kandahar," Jaffar said. "He left again just over a week ago and was headed to Pakistan, where he was helped across the border by Pashtun tribesmen."
The newspaper's report of bin Laden's movements, posted on its Web site (http://www.csmonitor.com), is the first that the Saudi-born militant has escaped the U.S. bombing raids on Tora Bora. Bin Laden is blamed by Washington for masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,300 people.
A U.S. official in Washington, however, said "every indication" was that bin Laden was still in Afghanistan and that U.S. officials had no indication he had left. Jaffar spoke through an Arabic-speaking reporter and interpreter in a remote village at the base of Tora Bora, the newspaper reported, and said bin Laden sent his 19-year-old son Salah Uddin back to Tora Bora to act on his behalf.
Jaffar, who said he traveled with bin Laden in a truck out of Jalalabad, told the newspaper: "Osama is my good friend....After Osama left 10 days ago, he contacted us inside Tora Bora to tell us that he was sending his own son to be with us there. His son traveled through Paktia province with 30 Arabs and 50 Afghan fighters.
"Yesterday, Salah Uddin told me to leave, and he gave me money because I will likely need another operation on my leg," the newspaper quoted Jaffar as saying. He said his foot was blown off by a stray cluster bomb.
During the interview, the Saudi financier, who studied in Cairo's Al Azhar University, reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of British notes to show that he had enough money for his travels, the newspaper reported.
