BAGRAM AIR BASE, March 15: The top US commander in Afghanistan said on Tuesday his forces would keep working “very, very hard” to find Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban fighters, despite difficult terrain and bad weather.

“We don’t know where he (Osama) is: if we had a good definition we would have had obviously apprehended him at this point. I think that it is very difficult and I can’t really speculate,” Ltt Gen David Barno told reporters.

Gen Barno said US troops would continue the hunt for Osama and other senior Taliban leaders, including Mullah Mohammed Omar.

“Those senior leaders out there, the Hekmatyars, the Mullah Omars, OBLs, — the hunt for them will continue,” he told a briefing at Bagram air base, the US military’s headquarters in Afghanistan.

Gen Barno said the 18,000 US-led troops faced a difficult challenge because of “the immensity of the territory involved, the mountainous terrain, tough weather.

“We’ll continue to work very, very hard. I don’t think I can really characterize how close or how far we are — our proximity to those targets,” he added.—AFP