December 10, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 5,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 9: Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri said here on Monday no one in the international community had claimed that the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was alive or dead and said: “How am I supposed to know?” but he believed he was not in Pakistan.

Mr Kasuri who was intercepted by some newsmen at the steps of the foreign ministry who claimed that Mr Kasuri had made a definitive statement about Osama whose whereabouts were still unknown to the US and other governments, to some foreign media while he was in Germany to take part in an international conference on Afghanistan.

He said that factually he had said to media, when asked to confirm whether Osama was dead or alive, that he doubted that a man as tall as six feet four inches could get through a strict vigil on the border with Afghanistan by thousands of US and Pakistani soldiers.

Mr Kasuri also recalled that the US and allies had heavily bombed Afghanistan and it was impossible to be sure who were killed unless a DNA examination had been carried out of all the dead which had not taken place.—H.A