Osama bin Laden is no longer in Afghanistan, a Defence Ministry spokesman said here yesterday, after the Islamist leader scored a propaganda coup with the release of a further video broadcast.
Bin Laden is in hiding in Pakistan under the protection of supporters of a radical Islamic leader who helped to create the fundamentalist Taliban, Defence Ministry spokesman Mr Mohammed Habeel said. He gave no information on how he had come to that conclusion or what intelligence the government had obtained.
Mr Habeel said bin Laden's support in Afghanistan had collapsed completely. The new Afghan government may be seeking to divert attention away from the matter of al-Qaeda fighters still thought to be hiding inside its borders.
The statement coincides with the latest video aired on al Jazeera television, in which bin Laden called his brand of terrorism "blessed".
The problem for the US, which has successfully routed the Taliban with the help of Afghan fighters, is that the capture of bin Laden was meant to be the set piece of its military campaign. Yet bin Laden and his top aides, including Mullah Omar, are still missing, with the US conceding it has no idea where they are.
Suggestions that Pakistani militants might be harbouring bin Laden were one of three setbacks to US policy in the region yesterday. Even though he looked frail and under pressure bin Laden's broadcast was a propaganda blow to Washington in many Muslim countries. Claims that up to 40 villagers lost their lives in a US bombing raid in eastern Afghanistan complicated matters further.