Osama: Don't Let U.s. Get Me Alive
November 21, 2001 -- WASHINGTON - An increasingly desperate Osama bin Laden has given his son and top aides instructions to kill him if American forces close in on his mountain hideout, according to new intelligence reports.
Turncoat Taliban commanders who have joined the hunt for bin Laden have told U.S. agents that bin Laden has asked those closest to him, including his son, Mohammed, to reward him with a "martyr's death" rather than allow him to be captured by the "infidels," U.S. military and intelligence sources said last night.
The new reports are the clearest sign yet that U.S. Special Forces commandos and CIA paramilitary hit teams are on the verge of cornering the elusive Saudi-born fanatic amid the collapse of the Taliban's reign of terror of Afghanistan.
U.S. officials disclosed that recent interviews with captured and defecting Taliban warlords have provided several important new leads on the whereabouts of bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders.
The search has been narrowed to a series of cave complexes in the Sur Ghar mountains east of Kandahar and a second region, in Tora Bora east of Jalalabad, Pentagon officials said.
The Taliban defectors have told U.S. agents that they believe bin Laden is now constantly on the move with his four wives and children and protected by a cadre of fiercely loyal al Qaeda fighters that could number as high as 1,500 men.
In a campaign designed to flush bin Laden into the open, U.S. F-15E fighter bombers have struck these cave complexes with EGBU-28 bunker-buster bombs and AGM-65 Maverick missiles over the last week.
Several secondary explosions were observed by pilots in these attacks and Pentagon officials believe scores of al Qaeda fighters have been killed.
Exotic spy planes are tracking the movements of troops with radar and using thermal imagery to pick up heat inside mountains.
Officials said about 300 U.S. Special Forces are on the ground working with Pashtun tribesmen in the manhunt.
As many as 1,000 U.S. Marines are expected to land in Afghanistan later this week to join in the search.
Fearing that bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders could still try to slip over the border to Pakistan, where they have pockets of supporters, the CIA and FBI are also beefing up security at the border and at Pakistani ports, where many ships are being searched.
Border patrols have stopped at least eight al Qaeda operatives in the last week, including Fazle Raziq, a Pakistani who is considered a close ally of bin Laden's, according to Pakistani media reports.
A Pentagon official, reacting to reports that bin Laden would rather die than be captured, said, "If he wants to die, we are certainly willing to accommodate him."
