Iranian Radio Reports Bin Laden Captured

[PhiPsiRuss]

AP Story

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's state radio, quoting an unnamed source, said Saturday that Osama bin Laden was captured in Pakistan "a long time ago." U.S. and Pakistani officials denied the report.

The report said that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest. In Washington, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied early Saturday that bin Laden was captured.

The report was carried by Iran radio's external Pushtun service. The director of Iran radio's Pushtun service, Asheq Hossein, said he had two sources for the report that bin Laden had been captured.

A Pakistani military operation has been under way in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites), and a Pakistani official said previously that members of al-Qaida are being sought there, although bin laden was not a specific target.

Pakistani Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan also told The Associated Press that the report was not true. "That information is wrong," he said.

Speaking to the AP in Tehran, Hossein identified one of the sources as "Shamim Shahed, editor" of the English-language Pakistani newspaper The Nation in Peshawar. Hossein said Shahed told him Friday night that bin Laden was arrested "a long time ago."

But Shahed, who is The Nation's Peshawar bureau chief and not its editor, denied telling the Iranian radio station that bin Laden had been captured.

"I never said this," Shahed said in a telephone interview with the AP's Islamabad bureau. "But I have for the last year been saying that he is not far away. He is within their (the Americans') reach, and they can declare him arrested any time."

Shahed gave no evidence to back up that claim.

Hossein said he had a second source for his report that bin Laden had been captured, but he declined to identify him except to say he was "a man with close links to intelligence services and Afghan tribal leaders."

Iranian state radio quoted its reporter as saying the arrest happened a long time ago.

"Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election," he said.

Homayoun Jarir, son-in-law of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said he could not confirm the report.