PARIS/ISLAMABAD, 24 September 2006 — France yesterday said a report that Osama Bin Laden died last month of typhoid was unconfirmed, and launched an inquiry into how a preliminary intelligence brief detailing the assertion was leaked.

President Jacques Chirac stressed to journalists that “this information is in no way confirmed.” He added that he was “surprised” that the French newspaper l’Est Republicain had published an excerpt from a French secret service note relaying information from an Arab intelligence service.

“I am a little surprised that a confidential DGSE (French foreign intelligence service) note should be published,” Chirac told a media conference, after a summit in a town north of Paris with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The note by the DGSE, dated Sept. 21 and published yesterday by l’Est Republicain, stated that Arab intelligence officials “are now convinced that Osama Bin Laden is dead.” It said that “information gathered by the Arabs” from a source they considered reliable indicates that Bin Laden “might have succumbed to a very serious case of typhoid fever resulting in partial paralysis of his lower limbs while in Pakistan on Aug. 23, 2006.

“His geographic isolation provoked by constant fleeing is believed to have made medical assistance impossible (and) on Sept. 4, 2006, the Arab security services received preliminary information of his death.”

It said the Arabs were “waiting to obtain further details and notably the exact place of burial before officially announcing the news.”

The DGSE has refused to confirm the report, and no immediate official reaction was forthcoming from Arab officials.

In Washington a US government official who spoke to AFP on condition that neither his name nor affiliation was revealed said, “I can’t confirm that account.” European and Pakistani officials tracking Bin Laden’s whereabouts told AFP, also on condition of anonymity, that the report could not be seen as reliable. Often rumored to be dead in the past — only to appear later in audio or video recordings — the Al-Qaeda leader was believed to have taken refuge on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Previous reported rumors have said that he suffered from a kidney disorder and was in poor health.

France’s Defense Ministry issued a statement also saying the report “cannot be confirmed.” Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has ordered an investigation “to determine the source of this leak, which is a crime punishable by law,” the statement added.

“We have not received facts about the death of Osama Bin Laden and we give no credence to this story,” said Tasnim Aslam, spokeswoman of the Foreign Office, to Arab News yesterday. When asked to comment on Bin Laden’s death story from Paris, Tasnim Aslam repeatedly said, “We are offering no comments as we do not have details and we cannot give credence to such a story which is published somewhere else.”

Earlier, former President Bill Clinton angrily defended his efforts to capture Bin Laden while accusing the Bush administration of doing far less to stop the Al-Qaeda leader before the Sept. 11 attacks.

In a heated interview to be aired today on “Fox News Sunday,” Clinton defended the steps he took after Al-Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and faulted “right-wingers” for their criticism of his efforts to capture Bin Laden.

“But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now,” Clinton said when asked whether he had failed to fully anticipate Bin Laden’s danger.

— With input from agencies