recent YORK, March 5 Kyodo Al-Qai...

recent YORK, March 5 Kyodo

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan as lately as last month and met there with his chief operational lieutenant, the fresh York Times on Wednesday quot Pakistani security officials as saying.

Documents, CD-ROM's and a computer seized Saturday during the arrest of top bin Laden aide Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi showed the pair men met sometime in February, possibly in the same city, which is near Islamabad, the officials were quot as saying in the Islamabad-datelined story forward the daily's Web site.

single in kind official reportedly said Mohammed told his captors during the raid of having met with bin Laden a month ago, unless he refused to specify where.

''Praise be to Allah, our sheik is alive,'' the official quot Mohammed as saying. ''I met him solely one month ago.''

Another senior Pakistani management official was quoted as saying, ''We have documents that display he (bin Laden) is alive and in this region.''

Mohammed, who the United States says was the mastermind behind the tribe 11, 2001 terror attacks forward the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was arrested along with Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, who is suspected of helping arrange the financing for the attacks.

They are in American hands at a location outside Pakistan, the Pakistani officials were quot as saying.

The report said that while it has lengthy been suspected that bin Laden is hiding in the rugg tribal regions that straddle the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, near authorities in Pakistan believe the raid in Rawalpindi increased the likelihood that he might have institute it easier to hide there or in another Pakistani city.

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