ISLAMABAD, Jan 7: The United States on Friday advertised rewards in a leading newspaper for information leading to the capture of 14 Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

The half-page advertisement placed in an Urdu newspaper by the US embassy in Islamabad, features mug-shots of the wanted men and said anyone giving details to a special email address or hotlines would remain anonymous.

The United States has offered up to $25 million each for Osama and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, while Mullah Omar has a $10 million price on his head. The unusual step represents a renewed effort to track down the main Al Qaeda hierarchy amid fears that Osama's trail has gone cold three years after the Taliban were ousted in Afghanistan.

The US embassy said in a statement that the ad was the first in a series appearing in newspapers and on radio and television. It was designed to promote awareness of the US Rewards for Justice programme and to "urge people to bring some of the most wanted international terrorists to justice".

US officials believe the main Al Qaeda men are hiding somewhere in the mountains on the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The other suspects in the US advertisement each carry a reward of $5 million for 'terrorist' activities such as making explosives, training and methods of using poison for terror attacks.

Similar ads have appeared in publications like The New York Times, Paris Match, Germany's Die Welt, Pravda in Russia and the Egyptian paper Al Hayat, the embassy statement said.

The reward offer came as the Pakistani interior ministry reissued an advisory to some cabinet members about a possible threat from Al Qaeda-linked militants, a government official said.

In a letter, the ministry said it had information that 'terrorist elements' might try to kidnap or attack some ministers, civil servants or army officers. A similar warning was issued last September.

The cabinet members on top of the hit list were said to be Information Minister Sheikh Rashid, Special Education and Social Development Minister Zubaida Jalal and Minister for Kashmir Affairs Faisal Saleh Hyat, he said.

The biggest coup in the US's war on terror came in Pakistan when key 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested in Rawalpindi in 2003. Last year Pakistan arrested several major Al Qaeda operatives, including Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, convicted of the 1998 twin bombings of US embassies in east Africa, and Al Qaeda computer expert Naeem Noor Khan.

However, President Pervez Musharraf said during a trip to Washington in December said that Osama's trail had gone cold and there were no active leads on where he was hiding. -AFP