20 March 2004	Saturday	28 Muharram 1425

KABUL, March 19: Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri are safe and in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan, a Taliban spokesman said on Friday.

Speaking by satellite phone from southern Afghanistan, Abdul Samad dismissed speculation by Pakistani officials that Al Zawahiri could be surrounded in South Waziristan, saying he was "100 per cent" sure the Al Qaeda number two was safe.

"All these reports about Ayman Al Zawahiri being surrounded in Pakistan are not true, they are just propaganda by the US coalition and by the Pakistani army to weaken Taliban morale," he said.

"They are all safe and they are on this side of the border," Mr Samad said of the top Al Qaeda leadership. An Afghan military source said some 50 Al Qaeda operatives had been pushed over the border from Pakistan to Afghanistan in the past week.

These men had been based in tribal South Waziristan and they are now hiding in the south eastern province of Paktika, particularly around Urgun, Gayan and Barmal, he said.

He also confirmed that intense psychological warfare had been going on, with the American military trying to destabilise the Al Qaeda network with misinformation. -AFP