Laden with doubt

A senior US defence official denied the report, saying it was ‘‘another piece of stray voltage passing around out there’’. Larry Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said: ‘‘I don’t have any reason to think it’s true.’’

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri declined to confirm the report. ‘‘I cannot confirm it. They (the officials) made an effort to capture him,’’ Kasuri said at a joint press meet with French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin. Homayoun Jarir, son-in-law of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said he could not confirm the report.

While Shamim Shahed, the Bureau Chief for The Nation in Peshawar, was cited by the director of IRNA’s Pashtun service as the source, the correspondent declined to confirm. Shahed denied in an AP interview ever telling IRNA that Laden had been held: ‘‘I never said this, but I have been saying that he is… within reach, and they can declare him arrested any time.”