'Show us where's Osama'

2005-06-25 18:53

Islamabad - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday that no one has any real evidence of where Osama bin Laden is hiding, and anyone who believes the al-Qaeda chief is hiding in Pakistan should tell him where.

"There are a lot of people who say that Osama bin Laden is here in Pakistan," Musharraf told reporters in Islamabad before leaving on an official visit to Saudi Arabia.

"Please come and show us where he is or tell us where he is. We will act on such information."

Pakistan is a key ally in the US-led war on terror. Musharraf's comments came little more than a week after US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said Bin Laden and fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar were probably not in Afghanistan. He didn't say where the two were hiding.

"He (Bin Laden) could be anywhere," Musharraf said on Saturday.

He said Pakistan is working closely with Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism and has already taken steps to secure their shared border to prevent militants from crossing into or from Afghanistan, where US-led coalition forces are operating.

"There is a total and complete understanding between us," he said.

Musharraf - who abandoned support for Afghanistan's former Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States - spoke twice with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the telephone this week.

When asked what they had discussed, Musharraf said "a small difference of opinion was discussed and resolved".

Last week, Karzai's spokesperson, Jawed Ludin, said Islamabad wasn't doing enough to fight the militants, and said there would never be peace in Afghanistan until the two nations "join hands together to fight terrorism".

- AP