Bin Laden said to be 'alive and well'

"I am in contact with Mullah Omar and take directions from him," Mullah Akhtar Usmani told GEO TV . "Taliban are all over Afghanistan. ... They may be more in some provinces and less in the other, but their support is growing."

The BBC's Rahimullah Yusufzai says that Mullah Usmani was a senior commander in the Taliban before its fall in 2001, but BBC reports that "there is no way of independently verifying Mullah Usmani's claims."

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CNN reports that "Usmani, who is a member of the Taliban leadership council, would not say if Omar takes part in any of the council's meetings."

"I would not like to reveal the fact whether we meet or not, but what I can tell you is that I am still getting instructions from him," he said.

According to BBC, "Pakistani observers are surprised at GEO TV's ability to interview a top Taliban commander at a time when members of the militia are targets of a massive manhunt by the US-led coalition as well as Pakistani forces."

Meanwhile, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf also said Tuesday that bin Laden is alive and probably living in the mountainous region near the Pakistani-Afghan border. Speaking from Australia, where he is on a three-day visit to promote counter-terrorism cooperation and increased trade, Mr. Musharraf also told the Australian National Press Club that if the world had listened to Pakistan's warnings about the Taliban and Al Qaeda, then the September 11 attacks might not have happened, reports the Herald Sun of Melbourne.

"I often wonder if the international community, particularly the West, had heeded our plea and engaged the Taliban, there was a chance that ... 9/11 could have been prevented," he said. Musharraf also called for an exit date for the withdrawal of US troops in Afghanistan, reports the Sun.

But US Congressman Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania writes in a new book on terrorism that he has received credible intelligence that bin Laden has been in and out of Iran several times in the last few years.

Mr. Weldon, who is the vice chairman of the House Homeland Security and Armed Services Committees, "lambastes the Central Intelligence Agency, accusing it of 'gross incompetence' for dismissing an Iranian expatriate who he says offered critical information about terrorist threats, the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Iran's nuclear weapons program," reports The New York Times.

The Times reports that Weldon "decided 'in desperation' to publish the information because he feared the government was not acting on his source's warnings. "I'm not going to have more of my friends killed because we ignore the intelligence that's been given to us on a silver platter," he said.

His claims have "infuriated" CIA officials who disregard Weldon's main source for the information, writes the Times.

"He's never given us any information that was the slightest bit credible," said Bill Murray, the CIA station chief in Paris when he met Weldon's source, an elderly Iranian who once served in the government of the shah of Iran. "This guy was a waste of my time and resources."

Murray, who served in Iran in the 1970s and who retired recently after 35 years in the clandestine service, said he had come to believe that most or all of the information being passed on by the man Weldon called "Ali" originated with another Iranian exile, Manucher Ghorbanifar, who had been identified by the CIA as a "known fabricator" since he served as an arms deal middleman in the Iran-contra affair.

When confronted with the CIA official's comments on NBC's " Meet the Press," Weldon said the CIA sent him a letter on June 15, 2004 that ended with, "We welcome further information from Ali."

According to The Washington Times there's some disagreement within the US intelligence community as to where bin Laden is.

Asked whether the US intelligence community thinks bin Laden may be in Iran, a senior administration official told The Washington Times, "Some people think he is."

That source said there is great frustration, especially within the inner circle around Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that bin Laden has not been caught or even unequivocally spotted in Pakistan's border region. The frustration is fueling speculation that bin Laden may not be there after all.

Asked about reports that bin Laden is in Iran, which borders both Pakistan and Afghanistan, the official said, "That would be a big risk for the Iranians. ... There are all kinds of rumors that these guys go in and out of Iran, but that always struck me as odd."

Also...
• Let's Talk About Iraq ( New York Times)
• A third of armed forces fall short of battle-readiness plan ( The Guardian)
• Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in Kirkuk ( Washington Post)
• Shin Bet nabs 8 members of Nablus terror cell ( Ha'aretz)

• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Matthew Clark .