Bin Laden, reportedly near death, under siege with arrests in Pakistan

WASHINGTON -- Osama Bin Laden is reported variously to be near death and under siege with the arrests of close aides in Pakistan.

Diplomatic sources in Washington and Islamabad said the Saudi billionaire is dying and seeking a successor to inherit his terrorist network. The sources agree that Bin Laden suffers from kidney failure as well as other debilitating diseases and is too ill to manage his Al Qaida terrorist network.

The most likely successor to Bin Laden, U.S. counterterrorism officials said, is an Egyptian wanted by Cairo for launching numerous attacks and who is believed to have been involved in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in east Africa.

The sources told Middle East Newsline Bin Laden has been treated by visiting doctors, including one from Baghdad. They assess that Bin Laden has only months to live. He has not been seen in more than a year amid heightened U.S. efforts to press Pakistan and Afghanistan to capture and surrender Bin Laden.

Bin Laden is said to have $300 million to operate his terrorist network, including training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition, Bin Laden controls projects in Afghanistan and Sudan. Bin Laden's family in Saudi Arabia has an estimated fortune of $5 billion. Funds to the group is believed to have been transferred by Bin Laden supporters in the Gulf.

The most likely successor to Bin Laden, U.S. officials said, is Ayman Zawahiri, leader of the Jihad, the Egyptian Islamic insurgency group.

Zawahiri, 49, is believed to be in Afghanistan with Bin Laden. He was a key organizer of the Bin Laden ruling in February 1998 that called for the death of Americans and their allies and has met with the Lebanese Hizbullah group and others to plan attacks against U.S. interests.

Another target, the officials said, is U.S. troops in Bosnia and Kosovo.

On Friday, the Afghan ruling Taliban movement said it did not give any assurances to the United Nations regarding the world body's demand that Bin Laden be expelled. The Security Council had threatened more sanctions on the Taliban if it refuses to expel Bin Laden.

"We neither gave him full assurance nor showed our decline although the issues of Bin Laden and ending of war came under discussions during negotiations," Taliban spokesman Maulvi Abdul Hai Mutmaen told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Meanwhile, Islamic sources in London report that aides to Bin Laden have been arrested by Pakistan in the first demonstration that Islamabad is cooperating in efforts to capture the world's most wanted terrorist. Bin Laden is accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in east Africa in 1998.

The London-based Islamic Observation Center said Pakistan has arrested four men on suspicion of having links with Bin Laden. The center's director Yasser Serri said the men were detained in Peshawar last month ahead of U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Pakistan.

Serri said one of the men was an Egyptian-born Dane who was sentenced to death in absentia by a military court upon conviction for the 1993 attempted murder of former Prime Minister Atef Sidki.

The arrests come as the United States wants Pakistan to impose trade sanctions on Afghanistan to force the ruling Taliban militia to expel Bin Laden. The demand came during a meeting between Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf and FBI director Louis Freeh last week, the Business Recorder in Karachi reported.

Saudi Arabia has already acceded to U.S. demands to withdraw its support from Taliban.