Sep. 24/25, 2006 -- A report in the French newspaper L'est Republicain, which published a leaked French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) intelligence dossier dated September 21stating that a single Saudi intelligence source claimed Osama Bin Laden died of typhoid fever in August may be an attempt to diffuse controversy about a Pakistani cease fire agreement with pro-Taliban tribal leaders in Waziristan on the Afghan-Pakistani border, according to U.S. intelligence sources with experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Earlier this month, ABC News reported on the comments of Pakistani Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Director General of Inter Services Public Relations, that Bin Laden and his deputy Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, would not be taken into custody if they agreed to become "peaceful citizens." The Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the Pakistani embassy in Washington claimed that Gen. Sultan's comments were misunderstood, however, the fact remains that the Pakistani agreement with the pro-Taliban tribes, especially those in North Waziristan, leaves a number of Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in place, including those from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Uighurstan, and other countries who now live under the protection of the Pakistan-recognized Islamic Emirate of Waziristan -- an entity that provides the Taliban and Al Qaeda with their first safe state after their loss of Afghanistan to a U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

The report of Bin Laden's death is likely a Saudi feint designed to relieve U.S. pressure on Pakistan's government and the pro-Taliban emirate of Waziristan. The furor surrounding former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's alleged threat to bomb Pakistan into the "stone age" if it did not join the "war on terrorism" immediately following the 911 attacks is also a clever ploy to keep Pakistan in line with U.S. pipeline plans for the region, according to energy industry sources.

Bin Laden "death" -- Chalk it up to Saudi and Pakistani smoke and mirrors.

The sudden sidelining of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Bush administration involves natural gas pipeline politics in the region. According to sources involved in pre-911 negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan  on the construction of a Central Asian gas pipeline (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea was a ruse by the CIA -- using UNOCAL, Enron, and Rand as fronts -- to keep a channel of communications open with the Taliban. These knowledgeable sources claim that UNOCAL and the other CentGas partners never spent a dime of their own money on the CentGas negotiations and that all the funding came from the CIA. The CentGas deal was known as a "political project" within the energy industry. The UNOCAL lead in the CentGas project was Bob Todor, an executive vice president of UNOCAL responsible for Central Asia. The reason for the CIA's bankrolling with "black budget" money of UNOCAL in negotiations with the Taliban was to dissuade the company and its partners from doing business with Iran by building a pipeline from Turkmenistan through that country to the port of Bandar Abbas.

The CentGas "political project" with the Taliban was led by veteran U.S. diplomat and native Texan Robert Oakley, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan (and Somalia and Zaire), coordinator of U.S. military aid to the Afghan Mujaheddin, State Department counter-terrorism corrdinator, and key Iran-Contra scandal figure (along with Richard Armitage, who negotiated U.S. weapons sales to Iran directly with Israeli intermediaries). Oakley was assisted by UNOCAL consultant and Afghanistan native Zalmay Khalilzad (former U.S. envoy to the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan and current U.S. ambassador to Iraq who was educated in neocon Leo Straussian politics at the University of Chicago). Khalizad, who worked for Rand, was recommended for the CentGas job by Cambridge Associates, an "investment firm" with offices in Arlington, Virginia and Dallas.

Energy industry sources also confirmed a high level CentGas meeting involving the Taliban, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, representatives of UNOCAL and Enron, the CIA, and Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi taking place in Tashkent in 1996. The CentGas "political project" also involved then-Saudi intelligence chief and the Royal Family's "policeman" (now ambassador to the United States) Prince Turki traveling to Jalalabad, Afghanistan to meet Osama Bin Laden and warning him to "lay off" the proposed CentGas deal with the Taliban. At the time, Jalalabad was not yet under Taliban control. The Pakistani- and Saudi-supported Taliban, upon taking Jalalabad in late 1996, assured Bin Laden that he would remain under their protection.  Bin Laden was told by Turki that individuals in Texas close to his late brother Salem Bin Laden (killed in a 1988 ultra-light airplane crash outside of San Antonio) personally requested Bin Laden to not interfere in the CentGas project. These Texas "individuals" reportedly included members of the Bush family, including George W. Bush and his father. Taliban representatives began to regularly visit Houston and discuss the CentGas project with UNOCAL, Enron, and politicians close to the Bush family. Meanwhile, the Saudis were convinced by their U.S. oil industry partners that the Central Asian oil and natural gas reserves represented the "next Saudi Arabia." Although this was a ruse, the Saudis decided to bankroll CentGas and other pipeline projects from the Caspian Sea to deep within former Soviet Central Asia.

Bushes to Osama Bin Laden in 1996: "Lay off" CentGas deal.

Although CentGasI was a political project to curry favor with the Taliban, recently there has been realistic U.S. interest in natural gas pipelines crisscrossing central Asia and negotiations are taking place in Ashghabat, Turkmenistan; Kabul, Afghanistan; Islamabad, Pakistan; and Quetta, capital of the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. Recently, a 30 trillion cubic feet natural gas reserve was discovered near the Turkmen town of Termez, near the Iranian frontier. The current CentGas pipeline project envisages a pipeline from the Termez field to Herat, Kandahar, Quetta, eventually linking to the Sui Southern Gas Company natural gas distribution system that links Sui, Baluchistan to Karachi in Sindh Province and the port of Gwadar. There are also plans to connect the pipeline to the Indian natural gas distribution system.

Pakistan, under U.S. pressure, has cracked down on Baluchi and Sindhi nationalists -- jailing and torturing many nationalist leaders and assassinating Baluchistan's revered 80 year old leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in August. Baluchistan political leaders have begun to challenge the former princely state's forced annexation by Pakistan. The Khan of Kalat recently convened the first grand jirga in 130 years and called for the independence of Baluchistan -- citing the fact that the land was never part of British India and should have never been made a part of Pakistan. The United States, the pipeline companies, and the Musharraf regime, keenly aware that Baluchistan represents 40 percent of Pakistan's land area and 4 percent of its population, want to stamp out Baluchi nationalism for two reasons -- it endangers the Termez-Pakistan pipeline and creates a problem for a U.S. military invasion of Iran's Baluchi region in the southeast of the country.

Baluchi nationalism threatens new CentGas pipeline and U.S. plans for invasion of Iran.

In support of the Termez-Herat-Kandahar-Quetta-Sui-Gwadar pipeline, the United States continues to rebuild the original Kabul-Kandahar-Herat highway, originally built by the Morrisen Knudsen Construction Company with U.S. funds in the 1960s. In 1996, the Boise, Idaho-based Washington Group acquired Morrison-Knudsen. The Washington Group is bankrolled by the Bush family-connected Carlyle Group, according to specialists who have worked on the CentGas project and is currently involved in building and rebuilding military bases in Afghanistan. The current Kabul-Kandahar-Herat highway project was awarded to the New Jersey-based Louis Berger Corp. and kicked off by then-US ambassador Khalilzad in October 2004. The work is supported by two Turkish subcontractors and is being partly financed by Saudi Arabia and Japan, along with the United States. There are plans to link the highway with the Pakistani port of Gwadar.

Pakistan had to sideline the Taliban in the Northwest Frontier Province and their Al Qaeda allies to make way for a 700 km pipeline from Uzbekistan through northern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan to India. The route would be Termez-Mazar-e-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar. However, this route takes the pipeline through territory controlled by pro-Taliban tribes and Al Qaeda units. Therefore, Pakistan's Prime Minister Aziz, was compelled to seek a peace treaty with the pro-Taliban tribes (and, by default, with Al Qaeda). It serves the interests of Pakistan and its pipeline partners, including the Hamid Karzai government, Mazar-e-Sharif Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Karimov government in Tashkent, BP Amoco, Royal Dutch Shell, Russia's Gazprom, and Indian power companies to tamp down the "Taliban" threat in order to proceed with the Uzbek-Afghan-Pakistan pipeline.