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Pakistan denies U.S. spy chief's claims on bin Laden

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 1, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan on Wednesday rejected a claim by the U.S. intelligence chief that Osama bin Laden and his deputy were hiding in northwestern Pakistan, and that al-Qaida was setting up camps near the Afghan border.

President Pervez Musharraf, however, acknowledged that foreign militants were in Pakistan's tribal regions along the Afghan border and warned them to leave, the state-run news agency reported.

Musharraf spoke a day after new U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that al-Qaida is trying to set up training camps and other operations in Pakistan tribal areas near Afghanistan.

"It's something we're very worried about and very concerned about," McConnell said. U.S. intelligence officials believe that bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, were trying to establish an al-Qaida base in the region, he said. McConnell noted the camps are in an area that has never been governed by any state or outside power.

"We deny it," Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told the Associated Press, referring to McConnell's remarks.

Sherpao told the Associated Press that there were no al-Qaida training camps in his country and that U.S. officials had not provided any intelligence suggesting there were.

[Last modified March 1, 2007, 01:17:12]