Been checking the different news stories on the rumor that started in France about the alleged death of Bin Laden from typhoid or some other water-related disease.
The latest AP article maintains that French leaders and other governments cannot confirm the report:
President Jacques Chirac said Saturday that information contained in a leaked intelligence document raising the possibility that Osama bin Laden may have died of typhoid in Pakistan last month is ''in no way whatsoever confirmed.''....Officials from Afghanistan to Washington expressed doubts about the report.However, Time Magazine claims Saudi sources saying Bin Laden is either very sick or may be dead:
Two American intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue said Saturday that U.S. agencies have no evidence to suggest a reason to believe that bin Laden is dead or dying.
Fugitive Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, believed to be on the run in rugged terrain in the Afghan-Pakistani border region since the September 11 attacks five years ago, has become seriously ill and may have already died, a Saudi source tells TIME, echoing earlier reports in the French media.As you can imagine, the cable channels are agog over these developments. CNN's Nic Robertson has a Saudi source who claims OBL is sick, but not dead. We'll keep monitoring.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that Saudi officials have received multiple credible reports over the last several weeks that Bin Laden has been suffering from a water-borne illness. The source believes that there is a "high probability" that Bin Laden has already died from the disease, but stressed that Saudi officials have thus far received no concrete evidence of Bin Laden's death.
