Pakistan Says 'No Info' On Bin Laden

Pakistan has no information on where Osama bin Laden could be hiding, a Cabinet minister said Monday, after a new audio tapepurportedly from the al Qaeda chief was broadcast on an Arabic news network.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao refused to comment on the tape, aired Sunday by Al-Jazeera. But he said that Pakistan's efforts to fight terrorism were not focused on just trapping bin Laden, whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect may be hiding in Pakistan's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports.

"It is not to arrest one particular person but to curb terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," Sherpao told The Associated Press.

"We have no information on his (bin Laden's) whereabouts," he said, adding that he would not speculate on bin Laden's presence at the border "unless we get credible information."

In the tape, bin Laden issued new threats and accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Bin Laden also urged followers to go to Sudan, his former base, to fight a proposed U.N. peacekeeping force.

The intelligence community in the United States informed the White House on Sunday that it believed the latest bin Laden tape was authentic, said Scott McClellen, spokesman for President Bush.

"The al Qaeda leadership is on the run and under a lot of pressure," McClellan said.

FBI spokesman and former journalist John Miller told CBS News' The Early Show that the latest tape is an attempt by the al-Qaeda leader to remain relevant.

"Because the U.S. has destroyed his base, has captured most of his effective operation managers, it is very difficult for bin Laden to even contemplate carrying out a 9/11-type attack at this point," Miller said. "So by issuing these tapes he's trying to inspire people like the London bombers, like the Madrid bombers, to move forward in his stead."

If it is bin Laden on the tape, this is the first new message from the terrorist leader since Jan. 19. In that audiotape, he warned that his fighters were preparing new attacks in the United States but offered the American people a "long-term truce" without specifying the conditions. That tape was posted in full on a Web site a month later and included a vow by the terrorist chieftain never to be captured alive.

The rugged Afghanistan-Pakistan border has been regarded as the likely hiding place of bin Laden and his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri since they fled Afghanistan in late 2001 when a U.S.-led military campaign ousted the Taliban regime that had granted them sanctuary.

Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, has deployed about 80,000 troops to its border tribal regions to track down militants and says it has arrested more than 700 al Qaeda suspects. Most of the top figures it has captured, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, were trapped in major cities.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said Pakistan didn't know where the al Qaeda leader was, but was still hunting for him.

"Naturally every partner in the war against terrorism would look for the al Qaeda leadership," Aslam told a weekly news briefing in the Pakistani capital.

Last week, the government said it killed a senior Syrian operative, Marwan Hadid al-Suri, 38, said to be behind attacks on U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan and against Pakistan's security forces. He also allegedly distributed money to terrorists and their families. He was shot dead in a gunbattle with Pakistani agents near the Bajur tribal region.

Sherpao said the killing was a "big achievement."

On Sunday, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said al-Suri was believed to have been a close aide of al-Zawahri.

In Washington, the FBI and CIA declined to comment Saturday about al-Suri, referring questions to Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

In January, a U.S. missile struck a village in Bajur purportedly targeting al-Zawahri. Pakistani intelligence have said al-Zawahri was not in the village at the time, but say several other al Qaeda suspects were killed, although their bodies have not been found. Thirteen local villagers also died.

On April 12, Pakistan claimed it killed an Egyptian al Qaeda operative, Mohsin Musa Matawalli Atwah, 45, who was on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists for alleged involvement in 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. He was among seven suspected militants killed in an army raid in North Waziristan.

Despite its successes against terror suspects, Pakistan has also been accused, particularly by Afghan officials, of harboring Taliban leaders and fighters, which it denies.