Osama escape from Tora Bora?

The News, September 14, 2005
Revealed: Great Osama escape from Tora Bora
Monitoring report

ISLAMABAD: The spokesman for Afghan Interior Ministry, Lutafullah Mashal, for the first time accepted that he entered Pakistani tribal areas of Parachinar and North Waziristan as a spy following Osama bin Laden in December 2001.

He revealed his role as an "Osama hunter" in Geo TV’s programme Capital Talk, hosted by Hamid Mir, on Tuesday night. Lutafullah Mashal is a Pashtun but he can speak Arabic and English fluently and he used his ability to speak Arabic to infiltrate al-Qaeda ranks. He was present in Tora Bora during the operation against Osama in November 2001.

He claimed during his first interview to a Pakistani TV channel that US forces committed a blunder by assigning the task of hunting bin Laden to a local warlord Hazrat Ali. He said Hazrat Ali got money from al-Qaeda and provided safe passage to Osama to escape, on the back of a horse, towards Pakistani tribal areas.

Lutafullah Mashal said that Osama entered Parachinar area and then returned to Khost where Jalaluddin Haqqani was present to look after him. He said he was following al-Qaeda in Pakistani areas of Shawal, Datta Khel and Miranshah. He said he saw some Uzbeks and Chechens, but not Arabs, in those areas .

Mashal criticised US forces saying that they visited Tora Bora in plain clothes and never participated in the hunt-Osama operation physically.

Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir investigated the great escape of al-Qaeda inside the mountains of Tora Bora one whole day. He spoke to the local people who confirmed that more than 800 al-Qaeda fighters broke the US-made net and ran to Pakistani areas.

Only a few dozen fighters lost their lives due to the B-52 bombers and all of them were buried with honor and respect by the local Pashtuns on the peaks of Tora Bora mountains. Geo TV team also visited Kunar province where a US military helicopter was downed by al-Qaeda.

Some Arabic speaking militants provided a film about one US marine who was killed by al-Qaeda men. His ID card was shown in the film according to which his name was Denney Philip from the US navy.

Al-Qaeda downloaded secret military information and maps from Denney’s laptop. Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir met Taliban leader Mulla Muhammad Anas in Andore district of Ghazni province.

Anas claimed that the Karzai government is limited only to some big cities and rest of the rural areas in south and east are controlled by the Taliban. Karzai is trying to struck a deal with the Taliban through Wakil Mutwakkal and Mulla Arsala Rehmani but there is no positive outcome of indirect talks between the Taliban and Karzai.

Geo TV travelled in more than a dozen provinces in the east and south of Afghanistan and observed that the security situation in those provinces is not improving. Hamid Mir also spoke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai who said that a lot of people in Afghanistan believe that the Taliban are coming from across the border.

However, Karzai praised President Pervez Musharraf for fighting against terrorism. He said the government of Pakistan is not involved in terrorism but definitely some elements in Pakistan are still supporting the Taliban.