- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden underwent clandestine kidney dialysis
in a Pakistani military hospital the day before members of his al Qaeda
network launched attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Pakistani
intelligence sources told CBS News in a report aired on Monday.
-
- Bin Laden, the accused mastermind of
the Sept. 11 attacks, received the treatment at a military hospital in
Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the source told CBS.
-
- A hospital nurse told CBS that the hospital's
urology department was cleared of its usual staff and replaced with another
group of medical workers.
-
- "It was a treatment for a very special
person," said the nurse, who declined to be identified. "The
special team was obviously up to no good."
-
- Another hospital employee told CBS he
saw a "mysterious" man being helped out of a car.
-
- "He is the man we know as Osama
bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other,"
said the man, who also requested anonymity. "They were saying to
each other that Osama bin Laden has to be watched carefully and looked
after."
-
- Hospital officials and the Pakistani
government denied the reports.
-
- Bin Laden has not been seen since December,
when he released a videotaped message to al-Jazeera television that appeared
to have been recorded in early to mid December.
-
- Earlier this month, White House spokesman
Ari Fleischer said the United States has no way of knowing whether bin
Laden had died of kidney problems but added that President Bush would not
view that as "an unwelcome event."
-
- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
has said bin Laden may have died of a kidney ailment.
-
- "The photographs ... show him extremely
weak," Musharraf told CNN. "He is a kidney patient and I know
that he has donated two dialysis machines to Afghanistan and one was specifically
for his own personal use."
-
- In November, the Saudi daily newspaper
al-Watan said bin Laden had ordered his aides to kill him if he risked
falling into the hands of U.S. troops.
-
- Washington launched airstrikes on Afghanistan
in October to flush out bin Laden and punish his Taliban protectors after
the September attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.
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