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| No information on Laden's status: Pakistan | | |
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has no information on where Osama bin Laden is hiding or whether he is dead or alive, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
"We have no information about his coordinates. We have no information whether he is dead or alive," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said at a weekly news conference in the Pakistani capital.
Aslam's comments came amid recent speculation about bin Laden's status following a French newspaper report over the weekend.
French regional newspaper l'Est Republicain cited a leaked French secret service document as saying bin Laden had died of typhoid in Pakistan last month, but on Sunday France's foreign minister denied any knowledge that the al-Qaida leader was dead.
Bin Laden is widely believed to be hiding in the rugged region along the Pakistan and Afghan border.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that bin Laden "probably" was in Pakistan. Pakistani officials usually say bin Laden is more likely to be in Afghanistan.
Aslam said that leaders of the Taliban are present in Afghanistan and denied that Pakistan aided the radical Islamic militia.
"We believe that the Taliban leadership is inside Afghanistan, Taliban resurgence is in Afghanistan," she said.
A US military campaign ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida.
Afghan officials have repeatedly said that Taliban leaders are also hiding in Pakistan from where they stage attacks against Afghanistan's US-backed government.
Pakistan has denied the allegations, and sparring between the two countries over the location of the Taliban led to a straining in bilateral relations earlier this year.
Much of the insurgency is located deep inside Afghanistan, far from the Pakistan border," Aslam said.
Taliban holdouts have launched an increasing number of attacks this year, particularly in the country's south, targeting Afghan and foreign troops. The fighters are increasingly targeting civilians and using tactics such as suicide and roadside bombs.
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