Pakistan insists there is no evidence that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is hiding in the country, and denies it allowed CIA agents to set up bases along its border to hunt the terrorist mastermind.
Pakistani and American generals agree the trail for bin Laden has gone cold, more than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said bin Laden had not been seen anywhere, and scoffed at reports he might be hiding in Chitral, in the country's scenic north.
"Osama bin Laden has not been sighted in Chitral or in any other part of Pakistan," Khan said Monday, adding, "there are no operations being conducted by US forces inside Pakistan."
President General Pervez Musharraf has previously acknowledged that a small number of US experts were working with Pakistani troops in operations against al-Qaeda militants. But he has denied that US forces -- deployed in neighboring Afghanistan -- are actively hunting bin Laden in Pakistan.
A report in Monday's New York Times, citing anonymous US officials, said the CIA had set up small bases along the border late last year, but the operatives were being hampered by uncooperative Pakistani minders.
It said the CIA had concluded bin Laden was being sheltered by tribesmen and foreign militants in northwestern Pakistan, and that he could be aiming to launch a "spectacular" attack on the US.
The issue is a sensitive one for Musharraf, who is under pressure at home from hard-liners opposed to his strong ties with Washington.
"There are no CIA cells in Pakistan ... in our tribal areas, and there is absolutely no truth in this New York Times report," said army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan.
Some believe bin Laden is hiding along the rugged border.
In an interview televised Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said bin Laden was "definitely" in the region, but didn't say where.
A senior Pakistani counterterrorism official said Monday that US officials had not found intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts, although their information had helped nab some al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan.
"Whenever US intelligence and communication experts come up with some specific information, and they need our help, we organize things, act on their tips, but the operations are conducted by our own security forces," he said on condition of anonymity.
The Times said Pakistani military officials have strictly supervised the CIA personnel at the alleged bases in Pakistan, limiting their effectiveness.
A senior official of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency denied the report's claim that militants in tribal regions may be getting help from its operatives. The agency helped build the Taliban militia before Pakistan switched allegiance to support the US-led war on terrorism.
Earlier this month, US President George W. Bush met with Musharraf in Washington and defended Pakistan's cooperation in the bin Laden hunt, saying its forces had been "incredibly active and very brave" in the South Waziristan tribal region -- a suspected hiding place of the al-Qaeda chief and his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.
The forces have killed or arrested hundreds of alleged al-Qaeda sympathizers and busted terror training bases.
On Monday, a spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan said he couldn't comment on CIA operations. He said US forces were relentlessly searching for clues to bin Laden's whereabouts.
"No matter where he is, whether he is in Afghanistan, whether he is in Pakistan or wherever he is, I think we share President Karzai's sentiment that some day ... he will be brought to justice,'' Major Mark McCann told a press briefing in Kabul.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema