al-Reuters: Happy Birthday, Osama!

Just tell the Marines where to send the birthday cards, Ahmed, and everything will be cool. From al-Reuters, the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" network:

Osama bin Laden, if he’s alive, celebrates his 50th birthday on Saturday, and his friends in the Taliban prayed for his long life.

The al-Qaida leader’s long silence has fueled speculation that the world’s most-wanted fugitive may have died, though many in the international intelligence community reckon Islamist militant Web sites would circulate word of his death.

“He is alive. I am 100 percent sure,” Taliban spokesman Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters, adding that senior leaders were in touch with bin Laden, reinforcing a widely held view that he is hiding near the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Khan said special prayers were offered by Taliban fighters in camps in Afghanistan to mark bin Laden’s birth on March 10, 1957, in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.

“We prayed that Allah may give him 200 years to live,” Khan said,” by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

“When we woke up today, we offered collective and long prayers for him because he is a great mujahid (holy warrior).”

al-Reuters sends their best wishes.