Osama hijacked talks during Kandahar crisis

Washington, DC: One of the world’s foremost terrorism experts, Peter Bergen, told DNA on Wednesday that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden helped the Taliban regime negotiate the release of Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen leader Maulana Masood Azhar during the December 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814.
“While Jaswant Singh was negotiating with the Taliban’s foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil,” Bergen, author of two books on Osama, said, “it was actually Osama who was advising the latter and the Taliban’s (head of state) Mullah Omar what to do. He was working behind the scenes but was helping both the Taliban and the hijackers.”
Bergen, who was in Kandahar at the time, said: “I did not know then, but the Kandahar airfield, where the plane was kept for a week, was one of the major bases of al-Qaeda, and Osama was in Kandahar at the time, helping the Taliban with the negotiations.”
01/09//2006 Sachin Kalbag/Daily News & Analysis

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