THE PLAN TO ARREST OSAMA-BIN-LADEN WAS FOILED BY MUSHARRAF

WASHINGTON, Oct 3: The US Central Intelligence Agency had trained some Pakistani commandos in 1999 to enter Afghanistan and capture Osama bin Laden, but the plan was shelved when the Nawaz Sharif government was displaced by the military. The revelation is made in a story published by The Washington Post under banner headlines. It says the operation was arranged by Nawaz Sharif and his chief of intelligence with the Clinton administration, which in turn had promised to lift sanctions on Pakistan and provide an economic package the precise steps that the Bush administration is now undertaking following Islamabad's pledge of support for the US-led campaign against terrorism. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage refused in a television interview on Wednesday morning to comment on the Post story, saying intelligence matters could not be discussed in public, but unnamed administration officials were quoted as confirming the report. The Post also said a proposal by Sudan in 1996 to arrest Osama, who was then in that country, and deport him to Saudi Arabia had fallen through after Riyadh refused to agree to accept Osama. Talking of a record of "missed opportunities" in the drive against Osama and Al Qaeda, the Post said the US-Pakistani intelligence plan was set in motion less than 12 months after American Tomahawk missiles were launched on Afghanistan. The Pakistani commando team trained by the CIA "was up and running and ready to strike by October 1999", according to one official, when the plan was aborted after the Oct 12 overthrow of the Sharif government by Gen Pervez Musharraf and the army.

The Post says Gen Musharraf, who has now committed himself to back the US, had refused to continue with the operation despite attempts at persuasion by the Clinton administration. It adds: "The record of the CIA's aborted relationship with Pakistan two years ago illustrates the value - and the pitfalls - of such an alliance in targeting bin Laden." The paper says Pakistan and its intelligence services have valuable information about what is occurring inside Afghanistan. "But a former US official said joint operations with the Pakistani service are always dicey, because the Taliban militia that rules most of Afghanistan has penetrated Pakistani intelligence." According to the Post, president Clinton's national security adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger says Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were the number one security threat to America after 1998 (the year when, in August, 200 people were killed in bomb attacks at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania). "It was the highest priority and a range of appropriate actions were taken"