August 28, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-us-Sani 29, 142

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 27: Former prime minister and the chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Benazir Bhutto, has urged President General Pervez Musharraf to take the nation into confidence on what she said secret negotiations on the fate of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Ms Bhutto made this demand in a statement issued here by the party’s media cell on Wednesday following a report published in the leading British daily, Guardian, saying that Osama was hiding in northern Pakistan guarded by a 120-mile ring of tribesmen.

Clues to his hideout were found after the arrest of his key aide Khalid Shaikh who was reportedly arrested from the house of an intelligence officer, Major Adil, although initially the blame was put on his disabled brother.

She said it was a startling disclosure by the newspaper that Gen Pervez Musharraf struck a deal with the US not to seize bin Laden after the Afghan war, claiming that he feared a backlash in his own country.

This is the first disclosure that bin Laden was deliberately not captured when cornered in the Tora Bora mountains.