Bin Laden 'unlikely' to be in Pakistan border region

Pakistani security forces have found no sign of Osama bin Laden hiding in a mountainous region bordering Afghanistan, and suspect the terrorist leader may not be there, the top military commander in the area said today.

US authorities have long said they believed bin Laden was in the rugged tribal region, but there has been no firm evidence of his whereabouts for three years. Pakistani leaders have gone back and forth on whether they believe the al-Qaida chief is in their territory.

Lietenant General Safdar Hussain, the top commander in north-west Pakistan, said late yesterday that his forces had scoured the region looking for bin Laden, but with no success.

“Everything is in our view. If Osama bin Laden was there we would know. He can not hide there. He is not there,” Hussain said.

Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, has arrested more than 600 al-Qaida suspects, but none of the senior figures have been caught in the border region. They have mostly been detained in cities in other parts of the country.

However, Hussain said there were still hundreds of militants, many who are suspected to have ties to al-Qaida, in the region.

He said that since March, security forces had killed 246 of them, 100 of whom were foreigners, and arrested 579. About 170 army and paramilitary troops had also been killed in the crackdown, he said.

“Our war against foreign terrorists will continue until we are successful. We will rest after the foreign terrorists are eliminated,” he said.

In the latest fighting in the area, five Pakistani soldiers were killed and seven wounded by suspected Islamic militants who attacked a convoy yesterday, intelligence sources said.

The clash occurred on a dirt road in Spinkargzai village in South Waziristan, near the area where Pakistani commandos last week attacked al-Qaida-linked kidnappers holding two Chinese people.

One of the Chinese hostages died in last Thursday’s attack, while five militants – followers of a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner – were killed.