Pakistan on Monday denied a newspaper report that the CIA has set up covert bases in the country's remote tribal regions to hunt for Osama bin Laden and stop him from plotting another attack on the United States.
The report in Monday's New York Times, citing anonymous American officials familiar with the operation, said the CIA had concluded that bin Laden was being sheltered by local tribesmen and foreign militants in northwestern Pakistan, and was suspected of controlling an elite terrorist cell that could be aiming to launch a "spectacular" attack against America. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has faced heavy criticism at home for his strong ties with Washington, has previously acknowledged that a small number of American experts were working with Pakistani troops in their operations against al-Qaida militants. But he has denied that U.S. forces — deployed in their thousands in neighboring Afghanistan — are actively hunting bin Laden on Pakistani soil.
| "They're... ummm... doing something else." |
"There are no CIA cells in Pakistan ... in our tribal areas, and there is absolutely no truth in this New York Times report," said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
| "Nope. Nope. Never happened." |
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