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US denies planning strike on bin Laden

The United States has denied a report from Qatar that its military planes have landed in Pakistan with commandos in apparent preparation for a strike against Afghanistan-based terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

"This is an inaccurate report and should not be taken seriously," David Leavy, spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said soon after the report was aired by a satellite television station in the Gulf yesterday.

Al-Jazeerah Television, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation in Jordan, said the two planes landed at the same time -- one at Islamabad and the other at Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.

It said dozens of US commandos emerged, taking up combat positions near the planes and barring anyone from approaching the area.

Al-Jazeerah reported that the operation was in apparent preparation for a military strike against bin Laden, the exiled Saudi dissident whom the US holds responsible for the bombing of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania a year ago that killed at least 226 people, including 12 Americans.

The Pentagon, which does not discuss elite commando movements, declined comment on the report. But Leavy quickly denied it and another senior US official, who asked not to be identified, also said it was not true.

President Bill Clinton said on the eve of the anniversary of the bombings last Friday that the United States would not rest until justice was done.

The US had retaliated for the embassy bombings on August 20 last year with missile strikes at what its officials said were bin Laden's camps for training guerrillas in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has repeatedly denied responsibility for the embassy attacks.

There was no confirmation of the report in Islamabad, where the vernacular Urdu- and English-language media have been abuzz with speculation of an imminent commando raid or missile attack in the run-up to the anniversary of the US's retaliatory strikes.

In a later broadcast, the television's correspondent in Islamabad said his information came both from well-informed Pakistani sources and the Taliban, the Islamic movement controlling 90 per cent of Afghanistan.

He added that the US embassy in Islamabad had secretly been evacuating dependents of diplomatic personnel. He said more than 75 Americans had been evacuated in the past five days and that the source of this information was Pakistani authorities.

Meanwhile, the US embassy has protested to the leader of an extreme Islamic party in Pakistan over his threats to attack Americans if Washington launches another strike against bin Laden.

"Any attack on Osama will be considered an attack on Islam and Pakistan and resisted with full force," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the small Jamaat Ulema-i-Islam party, told thousands of Islamists in Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province 10 days ago.

"In the event of an American attack on Afghanistan, there will be war, not against America but against Americans," Rehman told another public rally one week ago.

"The American ambassador should convey the message from the Pakistani people and mujahideen (holy warriors) to his government that neither the ambassador nor any American diplomat in Pakistan will be safe," he said.

UNI

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