Recruiting posters say bin Laden’s alive

Associated Press

SPINBOLDAK, Afghanistan – Posters plastered on poles and walls in the area along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan declare that Osama bin Laden is alive and urge the faithful to wage war against the U.S.-led coalition.

“I am alive. My friend, Mullah Omar, is alive and it is the duty of all Muslims to wage a war on non-Muslims,” the posters read, referring to the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

It was impossible to determine whether the posters were really from bin Laden or from followers using his name to rally Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers. Both bin Laden and Mullah Omar have been the subjects of intense manhunts by U.S. and coalition forces since the Taliban abandoned their last stronghold of Kandahar in December.

Posters and handbills calling for jihad, or holy war, against the U.S.-led coalition have appeared intermittently since the collapse of the Taliban last year. What makes these unusual is that they were written in the Pakistani language Urdu.

That indicates al-Qaida may be stepping up recruiting in neighboring Pakistan, in the tribal belt along the border to which the U.S. military says most senior leaders have escaped and where the Taliban are seeking to regroup.

The fresh call for recruits coincides with a decision by Pakistan to redeploy troops to its tense eastern border with neighbor India, where the world worries about an all-out nuclear war over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

The posters, seen on both sides of the border, call bin Laden the “lion of Islam.” Other handbills feature a picture of the elusive terror mastermind. On the other side is a drawing of Mullah Omar with one eye blackened. Mullah Omar lost his eye during Afghanistan’s 1980s war against the invading Soviet Union.

Since the collapse of the Taliban, pamphlets, known as “shabnamas” or “night letters,” have circulated – always in the Afghan languages Pashto and Dari. Some have urged jihad against the United States and Afghans supporting the U.S.-led coalition.

Others have offered bounties for coalition soldiers – $50,000 if one is captured alive, $30,000 if one is killed.