Afghan warlord says Bin Laden alive

DUBAI - Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is still alive but keeping a low profile, notorious Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said in a video released on Arab television late Sunday.

"According to my information I think that Osama is still alive," Hekmatyar said in the video broadcast by Al-Arabiya television.

He said Bin Laden, wanted by the United States over the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, would be better off "not multiplying his appearances in the media or in publishing statements and videos."

Hekmatyar earlier this year claimed that his men had helped Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to escape US special forces searching for him in the eastern Afghan mountains at the start of 2002.

The Sunni warlord is a former Afghan prime minister who carries a multi-million-dollar US bounty on his head.

His men have attacked coalition forces in Afghanistan but he conducts his business separately from the Taliban militia which sheltered bin Laden until it was ousted from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Hekmatyar is believed to be hiding in eastern Afghanistan or Pakistan while leading his Hizb-i-Islami (Islamic Party) faction in attacks against foreign and government targets.

Agence France-Presse