ISLAMABAD, Sept 12: Pakistan does not need US-led coalition forces based in Afghanistan to help them capture Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on home soil, an official said on Tuesday.

“If Osama bin Laden’s presence is confirmed in any part of our area adjoining Afghanistan, or for that matter anywhere in Pakistan, we have these troops stationed there to carry out that job,” the governor of North Western Frontier Province, Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, told a press conference.

“We have not deployed our 80,000 troops for nothing. They are there for a purpose,” Mr Aurakzai said.

He rejected media reports that US-led forces said they could cross the border at will in hot pursuit of Osama or other wanted suspects.

“There would not be any requirement for the US troops or special task forces to come and enter our area and take action against Osama bin Laden,” Mr Aurakzai said. “We are quite capable of doing that.”

“I don’t think that there is any such threat that has been hurled at us by our US allies. We are part of the coalition and we have not received any such threat that if Osama is here, they would come,” he said.

—AFP