PittsburghAfterDark
09-23-2006, 12:44 PM
Do we know???No.??The Saudis and the French seem to think so.?? The DGSE is one bad ass intelligence agency though so I give a lot of creedence to their estimates. If the DGSE confirms this you can bet it is true.??However they have neither confrimed or denied the report.
If he's dead I'm not surprised at the cause.??Typhoid will breed like dandelions in areas cut off from civilization and if he was unable to get to medical treatment or vice versa???Ooops, too bad.
From a PR standpoint it's about the best thing that could have happened.??He wasn't captured alive, put on trial for a spectacle of TV.??He wasn't killed in battle and martyred.??He ends up dying a horrible miserable death and all his "power" and "Allah's will" gives him as an undignified death that a person of his potential martyr status could endure.
Reminds me of Al Capone's death actually.??Not from a hail of bullets, not in the electric chair or gas chamber but a incontinent, delirious fool suffering from late term syphillis.
French newspaper says Saudis believe bin Laden dead
23/09/2006 10h47
PARIS (AFP) - A French newspaper published what it said was a report by the country's intelligence services that said Saudi Arabia believes Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan this month.
France's foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, refused to confirm the substance of the report, and no immediate official reaction was forthcoming from Saudi officials Saturday.
But European and Pakistani officials tracking bin Laden's whereabouts told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that the report could not be seen as reliable.
Often rumoured to be dead in the past -- only to appear later in audio or video recordings -- the leader of the Al-Qaeda terror network was believed to have taken refuge on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Previous reported rumours have said that he suffered from a kidney disorder and was in poor health.
The French regional newspaper l'Est Republicain published what it said was a DGSE report dated September 21.
"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi security services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," the DGSE report quoted by the newspaper said.
It said that "information gathered by the Saudis" indicates that bin Laden "might have succumbed to a very serious case of typhoid fever resulting in partial paralysis of his lower limbs while in Pakistan on August 23, 2006.
"His geographic isolation provoked by constant fleeing is believed to have made medical assistance impossible (and) on September 4, 2006, the Saudi security services received preliminary information of his death."
L'Est Republicain said the Saudis were "waiting to obtain further details and notably the exact place of burial before officially announcing the news."
Bin Laden has been held responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3,019 people.
His Al-Qaeda organisation has been linked to several other attacks, including the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa, a 2000 suicide bomb attack on a US warship off Yemen, and the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Born in Saudi Arabia to a wealthy family with close ties to the oil-rich state's royal dynasty, bin Laden has been on the run since October 2001, when the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan and expelled the Taliban regime which had been harbouring him.
Link (http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060923103815.0ytqynbj.html)
If he's dead I'm not surprised at the cause.??Typhoid will breed like dandelions in areas cut off from civilization and if he was unable to get to medical treatment or vice versa???Ooops, too bad.
From a PR standpoint it's about the best thing that could have happened.??He wasn't captured alive, put on trial for a spectacle of TV.??He wasn't killed in battle and martyred.??He ends up dying a horrible miserable death and all his "power" and "Allah's will" gives him as an undignified death that a person of his potential martyr status could endure.
Reminds me of Al Capone's death actually.??Not from a hail of bullets, not in the electric chair or gas chamber but a incontinent, delirious fool suffering from late term syphillis.
French newspaper says Saudis believe bin Laden dead
23/09/2006 10h47
PARIS (AFP) - A French newspaper published what it said was a report by the country's intelligence services that said Saudi Arabia believes Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan this month.
France's foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, refused to confirm the substance of the report, and no immediate official reaction was forthcoming from Saudi officials Saturday.
But European and Pakistani officials tracking bin Laden's whereabouts told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that the report could not be seen as reliable.
Often rumoured to be dead in the past -- only to appear later in audio or video recordings -- the leader of the Al-Qaeda terror network was believed to have taken refuge on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Previous reported rumours have said that he suffered from a kidney disorder and was in poor health.
The French regional newspaper l'Est Republicain published what it said was a DGSE report dated September 21.
"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi security services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," the DGSE report quoted by the newspaper said.
It said that "information gathered by the Saudis" indicates that bin Laden "might have succumbed to a very serious case of typhoid fever resulting in partial paralysis of his lower limbs while in Pakistan on August 23, 2006.
"His geographic isolation provoked by constant fleeing is believed to have made medical assistance impossible (and) on September 4, 2006, the Saudi security services received preliminary information of his death."
L'Est Republicain said the Saudis were "waiting to obtain further details and notably the exact place of burial before officially announcing the news."
Bin Laden has been held responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3,019 people.
His Al-Qaeda organisation has been linked to several other attacks, including the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa, a 2000 suicide bomb attack on a US warship off Yemen, and the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Born in Saudi Arabia to a wealthy family with close ties to the oil-rich state's royal dynasty, bin Laden has been on the run since October 2001, when the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan and expelled the Taliban regime which had been harbouring him.
Link (http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060923103815.0ytqynbj.html)