US Believes Bin Laden Still Alive -- Reports

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, February 25, 2002

US Believes Bin Laden Still Alive -- Reports

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The United States believes that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has survived the bombing assault on Tora Bora and other Afghan mountain regions and is probably hiding in the remote terrain that straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, The New York Times said Sunday.

The newspaper quoted senior administration officials as saying that the evidence they got suggests that the search has "bounded his whereabouts," casting doubt on a variety of earlier theories that he had been killed in the war, died of kidney disease or fled to Iran or Yemen.

The officials said their new assessment of bin Laden is based on information obtained within the last month, but they declined to describe it further because the information is "very fragile" and may be jeopardized by further disclosure.

Some officials said none of the recent information has been specific enough to mount new attacks on suspected hideouts like the bombardment of Tora Bora in November and December last year, and similar actions around the city of Khost in January.

Capturing or killing bin Laden still looks like a "long-term proposition," The New York Times quoted one official as saying.

According to the newspaper, the Bush administration believes that they have got one third of al Qaeda's core leadership after a comprehensive review of the U.S. military action in Afghanistan.

The administration, which defines the scope of al Qaeda leadership as between 20 and 25 key terrorists, released the names of six leaders they believe are dead, four of whom have previously been reported killed.

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