WASHINGTON, Dec 21: United States and coalition forces have joined Afghan anti-Taliban fighters in searching the caves of Tora Bora for Al-Qaeda/ Taliban men that may be hiding there, but no trace has yet been found of Osama bin Laden.

President George Bush told reporters on Friday the search was going on slowly but surely, and expressed confidence that those being hunted would not be able to hide.

Mr Bush also said the National Security Council was working on a system to deal with different people detained in the Afghan operation and on how to separate Taliban fighters from foreign Al-Qaeda men. As many as 7,000 people are believed to be in custody of various groups, including several hundred arrested by Pakistani troops on the border with Afghanistan.

The US itself has only a small number of people under arrest, and is trying to identify all of them before releasing details, but the group is believed to include some senior Al-Qaeda/Taliban people.

Pakistan’s cooperation in rounding up fleeing Taliban and Al-Qaeda men has been praised by senior US officials.

Confirming the presence of coalition troops in the Tora Bora search operation, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a briefing at the Pentagon that it was not known whether Osama bin Laden was alive or dead, but it was conceivable that bodies might be found in the caves as they were searched. In his piquant style that has won him quite a reputation among the Washington press corps, Mr Rumsfeld recalled what he called a truism of the intelligence community, that the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.

He said the US was dealing with Pakistan all the time, and “they (Pakistanis) are doing a good job” rounding up people in large numbers. President Bush hoped that as the new interim administration assumed charge in Kabul on Saturday, the US would continue to get good intelligence on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Mr Rumsfeld said while non-US troops would be part of the international security force to be put in place “largely in the Kabul area,” there would be an intimate relationship between the force and the US Central Command under Gen Tommy Franks, who is in overall charge of the Afghan military operation.

The defence secretary reported large casualties in a US attack on a convoy in the Khosht area, west of Tora Bora on Friday. Ten or a dozen vehicles carrying alleged Al-Qaeda/Taliban men were attacked from the air.

VIDEO TAPE: CNN meanwhile has reported that translators of the Osama bin Laden tape released earlier this month might have missed a lot of things, including the names of nine of the hijackers identified by Osama bin Laden while talking to his dinner guests.