Laden owns, operates Taliban: CIA

WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (UNI): Highlighting the pervasive influence that Americas most wanted man Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda forces exert within Afghanistan, US intelligence agencies have concluded that the fugitive "owns and operates" the ruling Taliban militia, the Washington post saod today.

Quoting intelligence information presented recently to president George W Bush and his senior national security advisers, the newspaper said bin Laden had provided an estimated 100 million Dollars in cash and military assistance to the Taliban over the last five years, making him the single greatest supporter of the Afghan regime.

Bin Ladens military units also provided the Taliban with some of its most committed and effective assault forces, the newspaper said.

It quoted sources as saying that a key component of the US war on terrorism , drying up bin Ladens sources of money , was designed to drive a wedge between the Taliban and bin Laden in addition to reducing the funding available to the fugitive for future terrorist attacks.

The newspaper said locating bin Laden in the mountainous Afghan terrain remained problematic with intelligence reports saying the fugitive still changed locations frequently, at times using an ambulance as cover , all under the protection of the Taliban militia.

They said he often spent the night in natural or man-made caves located in mountains.

"Its like chasing one particular rabbit in the entire state of West Virginia," according to an official.

The Washington post, quoting the sources, said the CIA was developing some imaginative and novel , and even risky ,techniques to pin down bin Ladens location.

"the problem," it quoted an official as saying, "is that we get where he was, rather than where he will be." The sources said the money provided by bin Laden to the Taliban since he arrived in Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996 had been directly traced to his entities through banking and other transfers.

The news report said according to US officials, bin Laden, 44, a member of an extended Saudi family, received a personal inheritance of 30 million Dollars when his father died in a plane crash in 1968.

But sources said the money he had been providing to the Taliban did not come from his personal fortune.

The money came from three primary sources, legal and illegal businesses or front companies bin Laden operated directly or indirectly tribute payments he received from several Persian Gulf states, companies or individuals that gave him funds so he and his Al Qaeda supporters stayed out of or minimize activities in their countries and entities that were masked as charities, according to the newspaper.

The news report, quoting a senior source, said the United States already had some evidence that one of bin Ladens key lieutenants was starting to hurt for money as a result of the financial squeeze put on by the US and its allies since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

But another source said the administration did not expect any near-term impact from the efforts to dry up bin Ladens financial support, because his financial network was so large and because expenses for operating Al Qaeda were generally low.

In the past, Al Qaeda operatives had often held low-paying jobs or resorted to petty crime to finance their expenses.

"There is going to be no instant gratification," the source said, according to the Washington Post.

Bin Laden had also given the Taliban military equipment, training and some of his best fighters for the battle against the Northern Alliance, the opposition coalition trying to topple the Taliban.

When bin Laden first moved to Afghanistan from Sudan, he gave the fledgling Taliban militia 3 million Dollars at a critical time in the countrys civil war, and was closely involved in the Talibans subsequent ascent to power, the newspaper said.

It said the Talibans protection and shelter for bin Laden have been a key reason US intelligence and military forces had not been able to locate him.

The news report, quoting US officials, said members of the Taliban often travelled in bin Ladens retinue and US intelligence had information that he often used decoy caravans when he switched locations and frequently gathered women and children around him, increasing the possibility that a US attack on him could result in the killing or wounding of innocent civilians.

Bin Ladens entourage is small, 25 people or fewer, sources said.

He has no headquarters, though US intelligence identified the location of a house he no longer used.

The newspaper said satellite photography of the Afghan mountains presented even experienced photo interpreters a daunting task because, as one senior official put it, "one Afghanistan mountain looks like every other Afghanistan mountain." US intelligence had few, if any, good human sources in Afghanistan, and information that came through various tribes or factions generally turned out to be unreliable, the Washington Post said.

According to a senior administration official, "its a treacherous country with treacherous people who buy and sell loyalties." The newspaper said US Intelligence agencies believed bin ladens videotaped remarks released sunday shortly after the US airstrikes began were recorded at least several days earlier.

The tape apparently had been pre-positioned with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news network with instructions or an agreement that it should not be made available until the bombing began.

It said when bin Laden was in Sudan from 1991 to 1996, he played much the same role with the government in Khartoum as he did now in Afghanistan.

During his years in Sudan, bin Laden provided "some direct financial support to the government," a senior intelligence official said yesterday.

He also contributed funds to the military industrial corporation, a collection of industrial companies run by the military regime to support the defense industry in Sudan, the news report said.

Bin Ladens aid to the Sudanese military gained his Al Qaeda operatives assistance from Sudans army and its intelligence arm in the transportation of weapons to other countries.

Given bin Ladens pattern in Sudan and Afghanistan over the past decade, one senior administration official said a central US strategy can be reduced to four words, "dry up the money," the newspaper said.