TOPIC: Laden alive and healthy: Pakistani intelligence

Pakistani intelligence circles have strongly refuted a French newspaper report claiming that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had died of typhoid in the country some time between August 23 and September 4 this year. “Based on the information gleaned from several arrested al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, we can say with authority that Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Al Zawahiri and the former Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar are very much alive and in good health,” said a senior intelligence official in Rawalpindi.
“We are sure that bin Laden is hiding somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said. “We believe that his deputy sometimes moves back and forth between the two with the help of Mullah Omar and his associates.” The intelligence official said that even the American intelligence sleuths stationed in Pakistan are convinced that the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy are well and hiding somewhere on the Pak-Afghan border. “And they are trying to hunt him down,” the official said.