Pakistani chief thinks illness killed bin Laden

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's president says he believes Osama bin Laden is dead, the victim of kidney failure during the U.S. bombing campaign against Afghanistan.

"I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason that he is a patient, a kidney patient," President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview with CNN broadcast Friday. "We know that he donated two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. One was specifically for his own personal use."

Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said he was aware of the Musharraf statement, adding, "I haven't seen anything in intelligence that would confirm or deny that.

"Bin Laden could be alive, dead, in Afghanistan or not," Franks said.

The United States has gathered "lots of info," he said, but that information is not always consistent. "I honestly don't know," he said. "But I know this: The world is not a large enough place for him to hide."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday that U.S. officials do not know whether bin Laden has died, but added, "I don't think the president would view that as an unwelcome event."

However, U.S. intelligence has some evidence that bin Laden survived the destruction of many of al-Qaida's camps and caves, American officials said. The United States hopes prisoner interrogations and other sources will warm up the trail to bin Laden.

Bin Laden has long been rumored to be suffering from several illnesses, including kidney and heart trouble. None of the ailments has been confirmed.

The 44-year-old terrorist last appeared in a videotape broadcast Dec. 26, during which he praised the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. Bin Laden looked pale and gaunt on the tape.

"I don't know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now," Musharraf said of bin Laden. "And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak."

Musharraf did not indicate whether he had intelligence reports to back up his suspicions. And if bin Laden is alive, Musharraf said he believes he is in Afghanistan.

Last month, Musharraf told Chinese television there was a "great possibility" that bin Laden was dead. He suggested that bin Laden could have been killed in the U.S. bombing of the Tora Bora region of in eastern Afghanistan.

Over the past few years, bin Laden has been rumored to have suffered from kidney failure, heart disease, hepatitis, liver or bone cancer, lung disease, diabetes, low blood pressure and an obscure connective-tissue syndrome.

The latest bin Laden videotape sparked a new round of speculation, with some analysts suggesting his immobile left side could indicate he had suffered a stroke or was wounded during the U.S. and anti-Taliban Afghan assaults on his suspected hideouts.

In the middle of last year, an international news agency said bin Laden's kidneys had been damaged in a failed plot by Saudi Arabia to kill the terror leader, a Saudi exile, by poisoning his food.

- Times staff writer David Ballingrud contributed to this report.

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