Men carrying posters of Bin Laden detained in south Afghanistan

Afghan police have arrested four people including two women on charge of carrying arms, pamphlets and posters of al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden and former Prime Minister Gulbudin Hekmatyar in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.

Police of Kandahar on Tuesday took into custody these four people, and discovered three Kalashnikoves, some letters and pictures of Bin Laden and Hekmatyar from their possession, daily Cheragh reported.

The arrest took place just one day after a powerful explosion in Kandahar city, the former stronghold of Taliban, in which, according to US military, four American soldiers got wounded.

Osama, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and Hekmatyar, the leader of his own radical group Hizb-e-Islami or Islamic party, both wanted by the United States, according to officials have been moving in border areas between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

Both wanted men, and their ally, Taliban's chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, who has escaped the US man hunt, have been leading an insurgency against the US-dominated foreign troops in Afghanistan, the report said.

Bin Laden and his host Omar, according to a Taliban commander, are alive and conducting their activities in the region, according to Pakistan-based private television channel Geo report on Tuesday.

Source: Xinhua