Bin Laden May Be Dead, Reports Claim

Via MarketWatch.com -

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Al Qaeda leader Bin Laden may have contracted an illness and may be dead, according to several news reports Saturday, including Time Magazine.

Time, citing unnamed Saudi sources, said officials have received "multiple credible reports over the last several weeks" that Bin Laden is suffering from a water-borne illness. The source said there is a high probability that Bin Laden has died from the disease, according to Time.

However, the source said there is no "concrete" evidence Bin Laden is dead, according to the report. And Reuters reported that government officials in the United States and France could not confirm details, but French officials did say they had launched an investigation into how a government report making the claim may have been leaked.

French President Jacques Chirac, speaking at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Compiegne, France,, said the Bin Laden's death was "in no way whatsoever confirmed," according to the Associated Press.

A French newspaper reportedly said that report concluded Bin Laden had contracted a serious case of typhoid fever in August and developed partial paralysis as a result. The report said the information came from a "usually reliable source."

Arab diplomats said Bin Laden's health has deteriorated during the last year, forcing him to travel less, CBS News reported. The report also said that Saudi intelligence has very credible information that Bin Laden has been seriously ill and has "a very high certainty" that he is dead.

The report said Saudi officials had their first information on Bin Laden's alleged death on Sept. 4.

A senior White House official, who declined to be identified, doubted the report, CBS said. Other news agencies said the Central Intelligence Agency and White House spokesmen could not confirm reports.Washington-based IntelCenter, which monitors terrorists movements said the last time it could be sure Bin Laden was alive was June 29, when al Qaeda released an audio tape in which Bin Laden eulogized Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Iraqi al Qaeda leader who was killed in a U.S. airstrike that same month.

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Taken with a gain of salt, of course. The sad truth it wouldn't matter in a operational sense if he dead or alive. But in a pure subjective sense, it might provide some level of justice. Al-Qaeda is less of a structured orginazation and more of than idea. An idea which isn't linked to one man, one group, or even one generation or men.

"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea...and ideas are bulletproof."
- V (V for Vendetta)