Bin Laden living in comfort in northwest Pakistan: NATO official

Top al Qaeda leaders are not living in caves, despite popular belief.

Sheltered by local residents and Pakistani intelligence agents, bin Laden and his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be living in houses somewhere between the border with China and the Kurram Valley near Tora Bora, according to an anonymous NATO official. The Pakistani government has long denied that the country’s intelligence agencies are protecting al Qaeda leaders, and Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Monday that the two men are not in Pakistan, but if NATO has information to the contrary it should be shared with Pakistani officials immediately. Bin Laden is believed to have narrowly escaped a U.S. bombing raid in Tora Bora in late 2001, and since then there have been no confirmed sightings of the elusive terrorist leader.