KABUL, Nov 18: Osama bin Laden has been localized in southern Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance said on Sunday in the most precise reported sighting so far of Osama. The Taliban insisted he was no longer in territory under their control.

Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency that Osama was no longer “in an area under our control.”

“It is difficult to say if Osama is in Afghanistan or outside the country. We cannot say with certainty where he is,” said Mohammad Tayeb Agha, a spokesman for Taliban leader Mulla Omar.

Northern Alliance interior minister Younis Qanooni dismissed the Taliban claims, saying Osama was hiding at a base 130km east of Kandahar.

“The Taliban are trying to cheat the international community so that they stop the aerial bombardments,” Qanooni said.

Zaeef also confirmed to AIP that Atef, believed to be Al Qaeda’s military chief and Osama’s ‘right arm’, was ‘martyred in the bombing of Kabul,’ although he did not say when.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that Al Qaeda killed 150 Afghan Taliban troops on Friday to prevent them from defecting to the Alliance.

“A commander who was foreign gave the order for 150 local Afghan Taliban troops to be killed because they wanted to surrender,” a civilian who fled Kunduz on Saturday told the paper. “They showed them no mercy.”

He said the massacre followed the defection of 1,000 Afghans under Taliban General Mirai Nasery.

A British newspaper, The Sunday Times, quoting defence sources, reported on Sunday that British and US special forces had cornered Osama in an 80sq-km area southeast of Kandahar.

Mulla Zaeef was quoted as saying in Quetta: “I don’t know where he is; whether he is in other areas of Afghanistan or has left Afghanistan.

“But I know this much, that he is not in the area under our control.”

But in the latest of a series of confusing statements, Mulla Zaeef later told reporters at Islamabad airport that “Osama is our guest. We will take care of him until the last moment.”

US officials have already said that Osama was running out of hiding places as the Taliban.

POWELL: Washington believes Osama is still in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday, contradicting Al-Jazeera satellite channel report that he had left the country.—Agencies