FRANCE: WAS U.B.L. IN FRENCH SNIPER SIGHTS?!? DID AMERICANS FAIL TO GIVE ORDER TO SHOOT HIM?!?

Bin Laden ‘caught twice in sights of French snipers’
FRANCOIS MURPHY, Paris

French special forces had Osama bin Laden in their sights twice about three years ago but their American superiors never ordered them to fire, a documentary claims.

The French military, however, said the alleged Afghanistan incidents never happened.

The documentary, due to air in March, says the troops could have killed the al Qaeda leader but the order to shoot never came, possibly because it took too long to request it."

In 2003 and 2004 we had bin Laden in our sights. The sniper said 'I have bin Laden'," an anonymous French soldier says in the documentary Bin Laden, the failings of a manhunt, by journalists Emmanuel Razavi and Eric de Lavarene.

Razavi said the soldier told them it took about two hours for the request to reach the US officers who could authorise it but the anonymous man also says in the film: "There was a hesitation in command."

Razavi said several sources told them the sightings were six months apart.

French armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said: "That never happened," adding the reported bin Laden sightings were "erroneous information".

Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, is believed to be hiding in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

France has roughly 200 elite troops operating under US command near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. Paris announced on Sunday it was withdrawing them at the start of 2007.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Bin Laden ‘caught twice in sights of French snipers’