Top Talib Says U.S. Defeat Certain

Osama bin Laden is alive and the future of the United States in Afghanistan is “fire and hell and total defeat,” fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was quoted as saying by a pan-Arab newspaper Friday.

“We don’t consider the battle has ended in Afghanistan.... The battle has begun, and its fires are picking up. These fires will reach the White House, because it is the center of injustice and tyranny,” Omar was quoted as saying by the London-based Al Asharq al Awsat.

“As for the United States’ future in Afghanistan, it will be fire and hell and total defeat, God willing, as it was for their predecessors--the Soviets and, before them, the British,” Omar reportedly said.

“The sheik [Bin Laden] is, thank God, still alive and this hurts [President] Bush, who promised to his people to kill Osama,” Omar reportedly asserted.

Abdul Rahman Rashed, editor of the paper, said Omar answered questions delivered by reporter Badie Qorhani to Omar’s media advisor in northern Pakistan. Omar’s responses were recorded on tape and returned to the reporter, the editor said.

Rashed said his newspaper ran the story only after a Taliban official confirmed the tape’s authenticity in an e-mail.