KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan had Osama bin Laden "within reach" on at least two occasions, but were unable to prevent him from slipping away, France's top general said Wednesday. French chief of staff Gen. Henri Bentagoat Bentegeat, said the al-Qaida leader has evaded capture several times since 2002, but not recently. He didn't say where bin Laden had been tracked down, and refused to comment on whether French special forces operating in southern Afghanistan were involved. "Several times the coalition has had Osama bin Laden directly within reach," Bentegeat told reporters during a visit to the Afghan capital. "But between locating a person and arresting them there is a gap tied to all the uncertainties of all operations of this kind."
A spokeswoman for the U.S. military in Kabul had no immediate comment on the general's remarks.
| "What -- him again? Cheez, I can say no more!" |
Bentegeat said several of bin Laden's top lieutenants also evaded capture. "At least two times they managed to escape," he said. "That's absolutely inevitable, normal in the conditions in which these kind of operations are carried out.
| "Osama's people are constantly evading my guys. Happens all the time!" |
Some 200 French troops work with the 20,000-member U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in the drive to track holdouts of the former ruling Taliban regime and bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group. They include special forces based in Spin Boldak in Kandahar province, close to the Pakistani border. Another 650 based in Kabul are part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force or are helping the United States train a new Afghan army. Bentegeat said France planned to add another 300 troops in August and that a French general would take command of the 6,400-strong international force, which is expected to expand from the capital into northern towns to provide security for September elections.
| Expct Osama to keep evading the French then, too. |
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