 Pakistan yesterday denied that leaders from Afghanistan's ousted Taleban militia use its territory to make statements to the media, days after a purported commander from the militia told a Pakistani television channel that Osama Bin Laden and Taleban chief Mulla Citizen Omar were alive and well.
| "Who? Us? Pshaw! No way!" |
"An interview with a particular news channel is absolutely no guide to the presence of certain individuals in a particular territory," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said.
| I'm not too sure denial of the obvious is the way to handle this, Jalil... |
"You must have seen that a number of interviews have appeared on international channels, again in Western capitals, from other countries also, that does not mean that those individuals were actually present in the countries from where the interviews were telecast or were taken," Jilani told a weekly news conference. His denial came after Pakistan's Geo television on Wednesday aired an interview with a man it said was Taleban military commander Mulla Akhtar Usmani, a former Afghan aviation minister.
| "Somebody shut him up!... No, no! He's raving! Really! Been sick for some time now! Just ignore him..." |
The man did not specify where Bin Laden was, but said he was "absolutely fine," and that Omar was still issuing orders. A senior journalist at the independent station said the interview was done near the Afghan town of Spinboldak, which is close to the Pakistani border. |