Reply #8: It's disinfo [View All]

[KJF]

At least that's my feeling, although there's no way to prove it.
Abdel Bari Atwan, who's actually met Osama, says:

"There have been reports that bin Laden suffers from serious illnesses. Some fanciful accounts even had him requiring kidney dialysis - often on the same page as another story which had him fleeing US bombardments on horseback through the mountains. I had heard that he has some form of mild diabetes, but when I spent three days with him and slept in the same cave, I didn't notice him taking any medication or showing any signs of ill health at all. We walked for more than two hours in the snow-covered mountains, and he seemed fit and well."
Secret History of Al Qaeda, pp. 61-62

Planting stories about one's opponents that make them seem ill or handicapped must be on page 1 of the pysops manual - remember the story about Zarqawi's leg being amputated? So I'm very sceptical of either of the dialysis stories (in Dubai and Pakistan), although, if you ask me, there's something in the claims they are used to support - that the relationships between Osama on the one hand and the UAE, Saudis, the CIA and Pakistan on the other are closer than we are sometimes led to believe.