Friday October 19, 2:14 PM

Report says bin Laden aide killed by own grenade

By Tahir Ikram

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - An aide to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden was killed in Afghanistan when a grenade exploded in his hands, and did not die in a U.S. bomb attack, the private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said on Friday.

Abu Baseer al-Masri, an Egyptian, died in a Jalalabad hospital on October 13, two days after a grenade he was holding exploded, causing extensive arm and chest injuries, AIP said.

Earlier reports had said the aide to bin Laden was killed by U.S. bombing around the eastern city that is known as a centre for guerrilla training camps in Afghanistan.

The veteran fighter was a group commander for bin Laden's al Qaeda (the Base) network when he died in Jalalabad, one of the main targets of 13 days of withering U.S. air strikes.

The London-based Islamic Observation Centre said this week that two of Abu Baseer al-Masri's comrades, a Chinese Muslim and a Yemeni, were also injured, although no details were given.

Abu Baseer al-Masri was reported to have been in Afghanistan for the last decade and was a member of the Egyptian radical group, al-Gamaa al-Islamiya.

Taliban sources in Afghanistan have said bin Laden and leaders from the ruling Taliban, which is harbouring bin Laden, were all still safe as on Thursday.

The Islamic Observation Centre also reported that the military chief of bin Laden's al Qaeda network had issued a fiery statement, warning that Afghans would drag slain U.S. troops through the streets, rekindling memories of Washington's doomed 1993 involvement in Somalia.

"The calculations of the crusade coalition were very mistaken when it thought it could wage a war on Afghanistan, achieving victory swiftly," Abu Hafs al-Masri said.

He was quoted one day before a U.S. defence official said in Washington on Friday that a small number of U.S. special forces were on the ground in southern Afghanistan.

"America will only be certain about its mistaken calculations after its soldiers are dragged in Afghanistan as they were in Somalia," said Abu Hafs al-Masri, the nom de guerre of Egyptian radical Mohamed Atef who is reportedly number two in al Qaeda.

His whereabouts were not known.

Abu Hafs al-Masri, whose daughter is reportedly married to a son of bin Laden, was referring to 18 U.S. troops, part of a U.N. peacekeeping force, who were killed when militiamen downed two helicopters in Mogadishu in 1993. Mobs dragged the bodies of some of the soldiers through streets. Washington then withdrew its troops from the Horn of Africa country.

The Islamic Observation Centre, which has close ties to Muslim extremists in several countries, started issuing regular reports on events in Afghanistan after the start of U.S.-led attacks against bin Laden and his hosts, the ruling Taliban, on October 7.

-- Anonymous, October 19, 2001