November 19, 2001	Monday	Ramazan 3, 1422

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PESHAWAR, Nov 18: “I hate Osama bin Laden only because of his support to the Taliban,” remarked Commander Fahim, guarding a colony recently vacated by Arab nationals in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province.

Fahim considers Osama enemy of the Afghans, as owing to him Afghanistan is called a terrorist country. Fahim is of the opinion that he (Osama), who has been the main financier of the Taliban, has made civil war a business to stay in the power in Afghanistan.

“ The Saudi dissident has not come to our country to help us, serve our people or to work for the glory of Islam. If he (Osama) is a true follower of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), he must work for a reconciliation among Afghans, instead of supporting only the Taliban.”

Pointing at a newly-constructed residential area in the Besood locality on the outskirts of Jalalabad, Fahim said Arab families were living a very comfortable life at the cost of Afghans.

He believes that Osama wants to make Afghanistan an Arab colony by settling a large large number of Arabs in Nangarhar province.

According to information gathered by Dawn through interviews with local commanders and talks with people in Jalalabad city, roughly 4,000 Arabs are living only in Nangarhar province, bordering Pakistan.

These Arabs disappeared all of a sudden when the US-led forces started pounding their residential areas and Taliban military installations.

Local people believe that Arab nationals had shifted to Tora Bora, some 45 kilometres south of Jalalabad city, for a possible bloody encounter with the US special forces.

A source, who has family relations with some Arabs, said Tora Bora was the safest place for Al-Qaeda fighters. They (the Americans) could not cause even the slightest damage to Al-Qaeda network established in deep tunnels and caves, he added.

The Arabs, who had married Afghan and Pakistani girls, have sent their families to their in-laws. A young man from Malakand division told this correspondent that he had solemanised the Nikah of his three sisters with the Arabs — two Algerian and one Tunisian — and all were in Jalalabad.

Zaboor Khan, who is running a pathological lab in Jalalabad, said: “Abu Nazeer, who holds a key position in the Al-Qaeda, claims that a day before the fall of Taliban government in Nangarhar province, asked me for shelter. He also wants me to look after his wife and children.”

Zahoor Khan claimed that many Arabs, living in the city, were not happy with Osama’s policies and many of them had no affiliation with Al- Qaeda. The problem was that they (Arabs) were dissidents and their governments were not ready to accept them. He said f any Arab crossed into Afghanistan, Osama would take into his possession their travelling documents, which put them on his mercy. .

The US jets have bombed the Arabs’ residential areas in Nangarhar province as well as Osama’s residence in the Khalis colony, near Farm Hadda, some 15 km south of the city.

The local people looted Osama’s house, when the inmates left it. Arabic and French literature, weapons and ammunition were found scattered all over the compound of the residence.Commander Hazrat Ali deployed his armed men in all Arab colonies,including the residence of Osama.