KABUL, June 16: Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar are not in Afghanistan, the US ambassador said on Thursday, a day after a top Taliban commander said the pair were alive and well.

“Mullah Omar is not in Afghanistan. I do not believe that Osama is in Afghanistan,” Zalmay Khalilzad told a press conference.

Afghan-American Khalilzad did not say where he thought the pair was hiding.

US and Afghan officials have previously said they think Osama and other Al Qaeda kingpins are in a mountainous border area that also straddles part of key US ally Pakistan.

Officials in Islamabad refused to comment on Thursday. But when Khalilzad speculated in May that Osama could be hiding in Pakistan, the Foreign Office said the US official should share his information so that they could act.

Khalilzad, who has been nominated as the new US ambassador to Iraq, said that the hunt for Osama would continue.

“Symbolically, it is very important that he is brought to justice,” he said, adding that progress had been made in the fight against the Al Qaeda network, with some of its top leaders arrested and its financial capabilities weakened.

“Sooner or later I believe firmly that he will be caught,” he said. “But this is a long-term struggle.

The diplomat said it was “not an easy job” to find one person being helped by others to hide in a vast area.

“It requires timely intelligence. By timely, I mean information in time so that you can bring forces to bear to deal with the situation,” he added.

A Taliban commander, Mullah Akhtar Usmani, told a Pakistan’s private television on Wednesday that Osama was alive and well. He dismissed reports that bin Laden was suffering from a kidney ailment. Mullah Omar was also in good health and remains in command of the Taliban.

He refused to say where the pair were hiding.

On Tuesday Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf also said that Osama was alive, adding that he was probably living in an area along the Afghan border. —AFP