KABUL, 28 September 2004 — Osama Bin Laden and other senior Al-Qaeda leaders are most likely hiding in Pakistan, the US commander of 18,000 foreign troops hunting militants in Afghanistan said yesterday.

Lt. Gen. David Barno also told Reuters in an interview that Al-Qaeda operatives were helping remnants of Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban to disrupt preparations for the country’s first direct presidential vote on Oct. 9.

“We see relatively little evidence of senior Al-Qaeda personality figures being here (in Afghanistan) because they can feel more protected by their foreign fighters in remote areas inside Pakistan,” he said in a heavily fortified US military compound in Kabul.

In the Hague, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told reporters he had no idea where Bin Laden was, although interrogations of recent Al-Qaeda captives and technological intelligence suggested the world’s most wanted man was alive.

“I don’t know where he is. I wish I knew,” said Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led war on terror.

Barno praised Pakistan’s efforts to flush out foreign militants from remote tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and its crackdown on Al-Qaeda-linked operatives in towns and cities.

Dozens of Al-Qaeda-linked militants have been captured or killed in Pakistan in recent months. Amjad Hussain Farooqi, wanted for failed assassination attempts on Musharraf, was killed by security forces on Sunday.

Barno said it would take time to assess whether Pakistan’s intelligence breakthroughs against Al-Qaeda this year would lead to Bin Laden, Al-Zawahri or Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, all believed to be hiding near the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

“It’s going to be a longer term assessment as to how close any particular set of take-downs or arrests or seizures of computers brings us to some of the senior targets.” Military intelligence pointed to direct links between Al-Qaeda operatives, mainly in Pakistan, and Taleban guerrillas bent on disrupting polls next month, Barno said. “I’m fairly confident that there are linkages (between Al-Qaeda and Taleban guerrillas).”