LONDON, Sept 28: Leader of Al Qaeda terror network Osama bin Laden, reported last week to have died, is alive and hiding in Afghanistan, President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview published in The Times on Thursday.

“It’s not a hunch,” Musharraf said, speaking from a hotel in New York.

The newspaper, without directly quoting the military ruler, said he believed Osama was hiding in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar.

“Kunar province borders on Bajaur Agency. We know there are some pockets of Al Qaeda in the Bajaur Agency. We have set a good intelligence organisation,” he told The Times.

Musharraf dismissed reports according to which he might have died from typhoid that emerged from a French intelligence memo citing Saudi sources.—AFP