NUKE SCIENTISTS - Met with bin Laden

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Sunday November 11 2:10 PM ET

Scientists Say They Met bin Laden

By ZAHID HUSSAIN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Two retired nuclear scientists who were recently arrested and questioned have acknowledged that they met terror suspect Osama bin Laden at least twice this year, Pakistani investigators said Sunday.

Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood and Abdul Majid left their senior positions at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission about two years ago and established a relief organization in Afghanistan.

The men said they met bin Laden at least twice during visits to Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar in connection with the construction of a flour mill, according to a Pakistani official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mehmood heads Tameer-e-Ummah, or the Nation Building, a private group involved in rehabilitating war-ravaged Afghanistan. Majid also worked for the aid group.

The scientists were arrested Oct. 23 and questioned about their work in Afghanistan. They were released after a few days in detention, only to be arrested again a couple of days later.

They were questioned by both Pakistani and U.S. investigators, the Pakistani official said.

Neither man has been charged with any offense, and Pakistani officials said there was nothing to suggest that the men passed on nuclear information or materials to anyone in Afghanistan.

In a newspaper interview published Saturday, bin Laden claimed he had acquired nuclear and chemical weapons and would unleash them if the United States used such weapons against him.

U.S. officials have said that bin Laden has attempted to acquire weapons of mass destruction but that they have no information to suggest he has been successful.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and until the Sept. 11 terror attacks, supported Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement. The Taliban have harbored bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, suspected in the attacks on New York and Washington.

But Pakistan insists it has not leaked nuclear information or material, and that its nuclear weapons remain well protected.

``Pakistan is fully alive to the responsibilities of its nuclear status,'' President Pervez Musharraf said Saturday at the United Nations in New York. ``Let me assure you all that our strategic assets are well guarded and are in safe hands.''

Musharraf is a key partner in the U.S.-led military campaign to root out bin Laden and al-Qaida and defeat the Taliban.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2001


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