ISLAMABAD, Dec 21: Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden may no longer be able to run the militant network and has not been heard from for nearly a year, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday.

Mr Rumsfeld said on a trip to Pakistan that the Bush administration still considers it a priority to capture the mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, who is believed to be hiding somewhere in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

“I think it is interesting that we haven’t heard from him for close to a year,” Mr Rumsfeld told reporters en route to Islamabad.

“I don’t know what it means, but I suspect in any event if he is alive and functioning that he is spending a major fraction of his time trying to avoid being caught,” Mr Rumsfeld said.

“I have trouble believing he is able to operate sufficiently to be in a position of major command over a worldwide Al Qaeda operation, but I could be wrong,” he said.

Mr Rumsfeld’s comments echoed earlier assessments by the US ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, but contradicted the assertion of Al Qaeda’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, in a video interview earlier this month that Osama’s battle against the West was only just beginning.

Mr Rumsfeld said: “We just don’t know”.

The most recent Al Qaeda message from Osama came on Dec 27, 2004 with the broadcast of an audiotape in which he urged Iraqis to boycott elections the following month.

KABUL VISIT: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Afghanistan on Wednesday for a brief visit that will include talks with President Hamid Karzai, the president’s office said.

He was due to meet Karzai for talks that would touch on US military operations in Afghanistan, a presidential spokesman said.

Mr Rumsfeld announced Tuesday that the United States would reduce its troop strength in Afghanistan next year by between 2,000 and 3,000 soldiers from the current 19,000.

The troops are based mainly in the insurgency-hit south and east, helping to hunt militants from the ousted Taliban regime and other Islamic outfits who carry out regular attacks.

Rumsfeld said the troop reduction would not have an adverse impact on US military operations in Afghanistan, where US and NATO forces have been based since the Taliban regime was toppled four years ago.

The defence secretary was last in Afghanistan in April for talks with Karzai.—Agencies