Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said in a television interview broadcast Thursday that his fighters helped al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden escape intense U.S. bombing in the Tora Bora mountains in 2001.Hekmatyar, a former
Recall that Hek was still living in Iran at the time.
He did not say where they found the shelter.
That'd be Fazl's guest house.
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are believed to be still hiding
Hekmatyar was a leader of the mujahedeen that fought the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and was briefly Afghan prime minister during the civil war of the early 1990s that cost tens of thousands of lives.
He was a politician, not a mujaheddin, and he spent as much time stroking Soviet butt as he spent trying to sell out or upstage Masood's men. The civil war of the early 1990s that cost tens of thousands of lives - known as the Dog Eat Dog - was his doing, almost single-handedly.
In the interview, Hekmatyar insisted he has not maintained links with al-Qaida. "We have no organizational link with al-Qaida," he said. "We have no military operations outside of Afghanistan."
"The relationship is purely sexual."
Hekmatyar was speaking in Pashto language. Only fragments from Hekmatyar's comments were audible under a voiceover translated into Urdu, Pakistan's main language. Geo did not disclose when or where the interview was made. Hekmatyar wore a black turban,
Even the Talibs don't like Hek - with good reason.
Hekmatyar's militia are active in eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border. His whereabouts are unknown. In the TV interview, Hekmatyar said that foreign troops must first leave the country before the conflict can be solved politically.
Which'll involve him rocketing Kabul again.