Taliban leader: Bin Laden behind attack during Cheney visit

A top Taliban commander said al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was behind the February attack outside a US base in Afghanistan during US Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit, according to an interview broadcast today on Al-Jazeera.

Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s top military commander, told Al-Jazeera that bin Laden planned and supervised the attack that killed 23 people outside the big US base at Bagram during Cheney’s visit.

Parts of the interview were aired on Al-Jazeera’s English and Arabic satellite TV channels and were posted the stations’ Web sites.

“Thank God he is alive. We get updated information about him. Thank God he planned operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

"You may remember the martyr operation inside the Bagram base. ... He planned that operation and guided us through it,” Dadullah told Al-Jazeera.