TEHRAN, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Reports from the state Iranian radio on Friday suggest that the chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden has fled by road to a tribal border area inside Pakistan.
Quoting what it called "informed sources", the radio said that bin Laden has left Afghanistan and is now in the so-called "free area" between the two
countries where the Taliban forces had been active for some time, causing trouble to the Pakistani government. The radio further quoted the sources as arguing that clearly the area could be safe for bin Laden.
Meanwhile, the British Broadcasting Corp. said that there was a report from a Pakistani newspaper Al-Akhbar which suggested that the Taliban foreign
minister and some other military commanders of the group had reached Pakistan.
Iran has consistently condemned the US-led air strikes on Afghanistan since Oct. 7. It has, however, kept opposing the Taliban whose extreme
religious stance, in the eyes of Iranian Shiite clerics, is an "insult to Islam."
Iran has closed its 600-mile-long border with Afghanistan so that bin Laden and al-Qaeda would not be able to flee in that direction.
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