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Osama may be in Pakistan, says Musharraf

Washington March 24. The Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, may have fled to Pakistan to evade an intensified U.S.-led manhunt in Afghanistan, the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, has said. He had earlier said that it was unlikely that Osama would be in Pakistan and that he did not know whether he was alive or dead.

But in an interview to The Wall Street Journal published today, he said the military operation in Afghanistan might have dispersed Osama's retinue.

Gen. Musharraf, who was interviewed in his personal Army compound last week in Rawalpindi, said Osama and a much-reduced group of guards might then have fled to the tribal belt in Pakistan, where there was much popular sympathy for him.

``If he is relegated to that position, where his group is forced or divided into small packets,'' said Gen. Musharraf, ``now a small packet with him coming to our side of the border and now hiding in one area, a house or a room, is a possibility.

PTI

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