NEW YORK, Jan 6: The US and other anti-terrorism coalition officials are beginning to believe that Osama bin Laden has fled Afghanistan for Pakistan, two members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee on Sunday talk shows here indicated.

Sen John Edwards, Democrat, who is travelling with other senators in the region, told

Fox News Sunday that Uzbekistan’s military intelligence service believes bin Laden has crossed the border into Pakistan. Uzbekistan, like Pakistan, borders Afghanistan and has been a US ally in the fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

“I fully expect the Pakistanis will do everything they can to help us locate bin Laden,” Edwards said.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen Bob Graham said bin Laden and other top officials have probably escaped Afghanistan, but no one is certain where he is.

“Increasingly, as our efforts to get them in Afghanistan have been futile, there is a greater sense that they have, in fact, escaped, and are probably in one of those tribal territories just over the border into Pakistan,” Graham said from Miami on ABC’s This Week programme.

Meanwhile, Hamid Karzai, Chairman of Afghanistan’s interim government reiterated on Sunday that if his people find Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden they will hand them over to the United States.