Is Bin Laden is alive and hiding in Afghanistan

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Brushing aside a French intelligence report that Osama bin Laden has died of typhoid, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says intelligence input suggests the al-Qaeda leader is hiding in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, possibly with the help of an Afghan warlord. Interviewed by The Times in New York, Musharraf said he believed that bin Laden was in Afghanistan, and suggested a possible link with the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. “It’s not a hunch. Kunar province borders on Bajaur Agency. We know there are some pockets of al-Qaeda in Bajaur Agency. We have set a good intelligence organisation. We have moved some army elements. We did strike them twice there. We located and killed a number of them,” he said in the interview published on Thursday. “In Kunar province it is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is operating,” Musharraf said, observing “there must be some linkages.” The Pakistani leader shrugged off a leaked French intelligence report suggesting that bin Laden may have died from typhoid sometime between August 23 and September 4 while hiding in Pakistan. “I don’t know. Unless I am sure I never say anything,” he said. “If they (the French) have some source they should tell us. At least our intelligence does not know anything.” According to the report, Musharraf has been in a verbal duel with Afghan President Hamid Karzai over Pakistan’s role in the war on terror. He has accusing Islamabad of allowing cross-border operations by Taliban from tribal areas.