Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden is hiding in the Karakoram segment of the Himalayan range, Arabic television network Al-Arabiya quoted its sources as saying on Monday. According to the Dubai-based network, in the past few days United States (US) security and military officials had a top-level summit at a military base in Qatar’s capital Doha to plan an operation to hunt for Osama. US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and US ambassador to Islamabad Anne Patterson were reported to have attended the summit. Last week, Petraeus testified before a US Congressional committee about security in Iraq and warned that members of Al Qaeda based in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas were planning a new attack on the US. According to the channel, reports say the Central Investigation Agency (CIA) has located Osama in the “rooftop of the world”, the area of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan to the west, in particular the chain of mountains of Afghan province of Nurestan and China to the north.
The report says that support for Al Qaeda is broadening, not only among the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani tribes that deny Osama’s presence in the area, but also fundamentalists including the Muslim Brotherhood that has changed its strategy. Muslim Brotherhood leader Mahdi Akef has called Osama “a mujahid that sincerely fights against foreign occupation in order to be closer to Allah”. In an interview published on the Arab website, Elaph, Akef said he supported the activities of Al Qaeda against occupiers and not those against the people.