NATO: Former Bin Laden Associate Captured

Published November 17, 2014

KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO said Thursday it captured a senior Al Qaeda facilitator and former Usama bin Laden associate in northern Afghanistan.

NATO said the facilitator was based in Pakistan and was a former associate of bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan on May 2. NATO said the man may have been with the Al Qaeda leader in 2001.

NATO did not release the detainee's name and or other details except to say he was captured Wednesday during an operation in Nahri Shahi, in northern Balkh province.

NATO said the man is one of several senior Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents captured in the province since February. It said a total of 35 people associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been captured in Balkh during that period.

Also in the north, the German Army said that six of its soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack in the province of Baghlan.

A spokesman for the Bundeswehr Operations Command in Potsdam, Germany said the attack on the German soldiers took place Thursday morning about 22 miles (35 kilometers) south of the city of Kunduz.

The spokesman, who was talking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy, said the soldiers were in a German Marder tank when they were attacked.

The soldiers were taken to a German base in Kunduz by helicopter. It was not clear how severely injured they were or who was behind the attack.

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