Bin Laden 'will be captured soon'

OSAMA bin Laden will be captured within months, the US military said yesterday, despite new claims that al-Qaeda had established a presence in Iraq.

"We have a variety of intelligence and we’re sure we’re going to catch Osama bin Laden and [the fugitive Taleban leader] Mullah Omar this year," a military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty said.

"We’ve learned lessons from Iraq and we’re getting improved intelligence from the Afghan people."

Lt Col Hilferty declined to comment on where exactly bin Laden or Mullah Omar might be hiding, but his optimism coincides with comments from US officials in Washington that the military is planning a spring offensive against Taleban and al-Qaeda holdouts.

US forces are pinning hopes for better intelligence from locals on new security teams in provincial capitals across the troubled southern and eastern areas of Afghanistan close to the border.

The teams are supposed to open the way for millions of dollars in US development aid and allow the Afghan government to return to lawless areas largely populated by ethnic Pashtuns, from which the Taleban drew its main support.

In contrast to the optimism in Afghanistan, the recent arrest of a top al-Qaeda operative, Hassan Ghul, as he tried to enter the country was evidence the terror network was seeking to establish a foothold there, the US military chief in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, said.

US officials in Washington described Ghul as a senior al-Qaeda recruiter who reported directly to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an architect of the 11 September attacks, who was captured in March in Pakistan.

"The capture of Ghul is pretty strong proof that al-Qaeda is trying to gain a foothold here to continue their murderous campaigns," Lt Gen Sanchez said.

"For months I’ve been saying al-Qaeda’s fingerprints are here in Iraq, showing themselves in the techniques employed by foreign fighters, including the tactics used by suicide bombers against innocent Iraqis and coalition forces."

A series of roadside attacks killed a local security officer and wounded at least 13 other people yesterday as insurgents again attacked Iraqis seen as collaborating with US forces.

Guerrillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a checkpoint manned by the Iraqi civil defence corps near Kirkuk, killing one member. In central Iraq, explosives in a cart blew up as a defence corps patrol passed in Baqouba, wounding ten.

In Basra, a roadside bomb exploded as a convoy carrying civilian officials was passing, wounding three Iraqi bystanders.