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Omar, bin Laden Both Alive: Taliban Representative
Chief representative of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to Pakistan said on Tuesday that Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden were both alive.
Asked at a news conference here if Omar and bin Laden were both all right despite the round-the-clock U.S. bombing, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef replied: "Yes."
He said the Taliban was expecting a long war with the United States and its allies.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef claimed that the civilian death toll from U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan had passed 1,000 and accused the United States of terrorism, repeating the charges that Washington has turned to chemical weapons.
The U.S. maintained that it is targeting only military sites and had flatly denied any use of chemical weapons. "The Taliban casualty figures were wildly inflated."
The U.S.-led forces have vowed to punish the Taliban for protecting bin Laden, who is the chief suspect in the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
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