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French paper reports bin Laden dead 
Unnamed Saudi police sources attribute demise to typhoid fever

Osama bin Laden died within days of contracting typhoid fever in Pakistan last month, according to unnamed Saudi police sources quoted today in the French daily L'Est Republicain.

"According to a commonly reliable source, the Saudi police believe that Osama Bin Laden has died," said a Sept. 21 confidential note transmitted by the Directorate-General of External Services.

According to the note to be published by the L'Est Republicain, the Saudi police "would try to obtain more details, in particular the location of the burial site, and then announce the news officially." The DGSE specified in the note that no "jihadist Internet site has for the moment been made aware of the death of Osama bin Laden."

According to the note, "the head of al-Qaida may have fallen victim to a strong case of typhoid fever while in Pakistan, on August 23, 2006," and may have died within a matter of days.


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Then in a month or two he will miraculously show up again in another new film.

Oh great..  I can see this now... they cliaim he is dead... then he "comes back to life" and claims to be that messiah that they are waiting for..

So when is the new video, coming out?  :(

U.S. can't confirm bin Laden death report: official

Sep 23, 8:22 AM (ET)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is unable to confirm a French newspaper report that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to have died last month in Pakistan, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Saturday.

"We cannot confirm the account," said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. "It's quite possible (that) there was some talk of this, but in terms of being able to confirm this, that I can't do."

The French regional daily L'Est Republicain reported that, according to a French secret service report, Saudi Arabia was convinced that bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August. The French government has said it could not confirm the report and would investigate the intelligence leak.

The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment and was looking into the reports.

Media reports suggesting that bin Laden was dead, seriously wounded or in ill health have surfaced periodically over the years, especially during lengthy periods of time without taped messages from the al Qaeda leader.

U.S. officials have suggested that his death would be accompanied by a surge of e-mail and telephone chatter among bereaved al Qaeda members, if not an actual announcement from the militant network.

But officials said they were not aware of any such chatter in recent weeks.

A factor fueling persistent speculation about bin Laden's health is that he has not been seen on a new videotape since late 2004, while his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, has made a number of videotaped appearances.

But bin Laden, 49, a Saudi-born fugitive with a $25 million price on his head, has released several audiotapes this year, which U.S. intelligence has authenticated.

His latest audiotape surfaced in July. In it, he warned Iraq's Shi'ite majority of retaliation for attacks on Sunni Arabs and said al Qaeda would fight the United States anywhere in the world.

U.S. can't confirm bin Laden death report: official (http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060923/2006-09-23T122247Z_01_N23227995_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-BINLADEN-USA-DC.html)
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Sorry to burst the bubble here brother.

Not bursting my bubble .....  it is expected.

Sounds to me like now they are playing mind games, wanting people to believe he is dead and then having him show up alive, just a way of deceiving people. sad thing is some people may actully be deceived.

I think that if obl dies they would certainly not want us to hear about it. My message to them is 'feed that to the pidgeons, if you want to prove that he will rise again after being dead a few days, let us help you prove it.  Hand him over and let us wipe him out then you all can sit and wait til he rises'

Bin Laden to 'disprove' his death?
Disputed claim of his demise could increase clamor of followers to make new video

A leaked intelligence report of Osama bin Laden's death has met scepticism from Western and Muslim governments but may increase a clamour from his followers to show himself on video for the first time in nearly two years.

One theory surrounding the mysterious French leak is that it was designed precisely to flush the al Qaeda leader into the open, prompting him to release a new tape that might give a clue to his whereabouts and state of health.

"Western intelligence, the Americans, the Saudis want bin Laden to appear," said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamist groups at the al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

"Perhaps they're trying to agitate him to appear by video to try to fix some information about his real (location)."

Rashwan said expectations of an imminent appearance by bin Laden had mounted among contributors to Islamist Web sites discussing the report of his demise.

The French regional daily L'Est Republicain quoted France's DGSE foreign intelligence agency as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leader had died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August.

But France, the United States and Britain all said they were unable to confirm the death of bin Laden, who in previous tapes over the past five years has boasted of how he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it had no evidence that he had died, and reports to that effect were "purely speculative".

ABSENT FROM VIEW

Bin Laden's most recent audiotapes were issued in July, but the al Qaeda leader, believed to suffer from a serious kidney ailment, has not recorded any new video message since the eve of the U.S. presidential election in late 2004.

That long absence from view -- contrasting with frequent, high-quality video broadcasts from his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri -- has heightened speculation he is either too ill to appear, or too tightly confined to a secret hiding place.

A new tape would give Western intelligence significant clues to bin Laden's physical state. And the logistical chain involved in producing and delivering it to a broadcaster such as Al Jazeera could also be vulnerable to investigation.

But the other, perhaps more likely, explanation behind the French leak is that is just the latest of many speculative and poorly sourced scraps of intelligence on bin Laden, the world's most famous fugitive.

The latest account said he had died from typhoid; others have had him expiring from a lung disease or killed by bombing. Despite a statement last year from then-CIA boss Porter Goss that he had an "excellent" idea of bin Laden's whereabouts, the trail appears to be cold.

"The big question is whether his death ... would have a demoralising effect, or if he achieves the status of martyr and becomes a rallying figure," one U.S. intelligence official said this weekend.

Rashwan, however, was in no doubt bin Laden's death, whenever it happened, would be announced by al Qaeda within days because it would make him an even more powerful symbol and motivator for his supporters.

"He is now the symbol of the Islamic jihad," he said. "He will become for them a kind of myth. It will give them more inspiration than the individual himself."