UK News 25-10-2001 Blair: Bin Laden Will Not Get Out Alive who: Tony Blair what: Says he can`t imagine Osama Bin Laden ever being brought to trial where: LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Tony Blair gave the clearest hint yesterday that he would prefer to see Osama bin Laden killed in the military action being waged in Afghanistan," reports The Telegraph. "He is well protected and well armed," the prime minister tells The Telegraph, "and I have always thought it unlikely that he will be turning up in court one day. But we will wait and see." In a TV interview with GMTV, in which viewers were invited to put their queestions, Mr Blair said that Osama Bin Laden will be hounded down once the Taliban regime has been overturned and promised "we will get him in the end". And once again he made the distinction that the allied military action is against Taliban military installations and not Afghanistan or the Muslim world. "No one should ever allow the lie to go about that it is to do with the West versus Islam," he clumsily reiterated. "It is to do with people, decent people everywhere, including Muslims, who are victims of terrorism, against the terrorists." Meanwhile, The Scotsman suggests that Mr Blair is having second thoughts about sending 1,000 Royal Marines to join US forces for a ground strike in Afghanistan after a Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon postponed a key announcement yesterday, blaming "a variety of concerns". [... more]

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