Hopes that Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command faced imminent capture faded Sunday as an armed standoff in this country’s tribal region headed for its fifth day. Pakistani officials hinted late last week that Ayman al-Zawahiri, 52, an Egyptian doctor and Islamic militant regarded as an architect of al-Qaeda’s Sept. 11 attacks in the USA, was cornered in the mountainous South Waziristan district. But asked Sunday whether the government had evidence of Zawahiri’s presence in the semi-autonomous tribal belt, Mehmood Shah, the head of security in the combustible Northwest Frontier Province, was unequivocal. “No. We have no indication. Our guess was based on the amount of resistance we faced and the number of foreign fighters,” Shah said during an interview in his office here. “Later on, many people started guessing names, and that’s how his name came up.” Full Story
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