Pakistan on Friday categorically denied a newspaper report suggesting the United States wanted to use secret bases here to launch a commando raid on afghanistan to capture indicted terrorist Osama Bin Laden. It is absolutely baseless. It is a load of nonsense and we strongly deny it, government spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi said.
The report on the front page of an english-language daily, `The News`, said Islamabad had rejected Washington`s request to deploy US special forces in north-eastern Pakistan, near the Afghan border.
Quoting unnamed sources, it said Washington was planning to send the commandos into Afghanistan, where Bin Laden is living as a guest of the ruling Taliban militia. Bin Laden is wanted for allegedly plotting the twin bomb attacks on two US embassies in east Africa in 1998.
A US missile strike on his suspected training camps in August 1998 failed to kill the Saudi millionaire. Such baseless reporting demand that there should be some laws to govern the conduct of the press in Pakistan. There is no truth in this story, Qureshi said. Bureau Report