Bin Laden 'no longer runs al Qaeda'

Western intelligence officers now believe that Osama bin Laden is either dead or no longer operating as a terror leader.

The ease of the arrest of key al Qaeda operative Ramzi bin al-Shaibah in Karachi last week has led intelligence experts to conclude that al Qaeda's leadership is now badly disrupted and Bin Laden is no longer in charge.

Bin al-Shaibah was interviewed over a satellite telephone by the al Jazeera television station in Dubai and within a day was captured by Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence troops backed and guided by the FBI.

In Karachi it is now believed that his phone conversation was picked up immediately by American electronic surveillance. Some say he and his colleagues were captured after a tip-off from a neighbour.

Either way, there was a serious lapse in security which led to the capture of Bin al-Shaibah and several more al Qaeda planners.

Among them was Umar al-Gharib, whose brother Khallad Tawfiq al-Attash is wanted for organising the attack on the USS Cole in Aden in October 2000, which killed 16 US sailors.

Bin al-Shaibah boasted to al Jazeera last week of his "key role" in planning the 11 September attacks. It is thought he tried to join the hijackers, but was refused a US visa three times.

The charging of six Yemenis believed to be part of al Qaeda in Buffalo, New York State, has added to the impression of disarray among al Qaeda members. Intelligence experts believe that if Bin Laden was still in charge he would have tried to seize the initiative by sending a taped message to al Jazeera.

"We have not had a single trace of him passing our desks for months now," said a senior British official.

He was last seen at the Tora Bora mountain hideout in south-east Afghanistan in December. It is now thought that he could have been killed during the US bombing of the caves there, or may have later died of his wounds.

There have been no sightings of him in Pakistan, Kashmir or Yemen - the obvious places for him to take refuge. A taperecorded message purporting to come from him sent to al Jazeera in the summer is thought to be a fake.

Last week a Pakistani paper received a faxed message which claimed to be from the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Since he can neither read nor write it was impossible to authenticate the message.

The latest arrests seem to have persuaded Saudi Arabia to allow US forces to use their bases for an attack on Iraq if sanctioned by the UN.

Many of those arrested came from the border region of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the homeland of the Bin Laden clan. The United States says it has evidence of Saddam Hussein training leading al Qaeda suspects but there is no direct link between Baghdad and 11 September.

Another factor likely to have persuaded the Saudi leaders is the view of British and American experts that Saddam is now in an end game for his survival in which he is likely to hit out at his neighbours with chemical and biological weapons.