Speaking to reporters after crossing the border into Pakistan after a visit to the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said bin Laden, accused of masterminding the September 11 hijack attacks on the United States, had not left Afghanistan.

'Osama is inside Afghanistan but I don't know whether he is in our (Taliban) territory or the area controlled by the Northern Alliance,'' Zaeef told reporters.

Earlier the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television channel reported that Zaeef had said bin Laden had left Afghanistan for anunspecified destination.following the death of his trusted Al Qaeda deputy Mohammed Atef.

Pakistan has closed its border with Afghanistan to stem the flow of refugees streaming from across the border. Meanwhile, the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Hayat quoted a man with the nom de guerre 'Abul Noor' as saying in an interview that bin Laden - accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks - had repeatedly spoken about taking part in World War III.

Abul Noor, whom the paper said belonged to bin Laden's Al Qaeda organisation, was quoted as saying, "Even if the American attacks against Afghanistan succeeded in finishing the Taliban movement, they would not succeed in arresting bin Laden."

"Not merely because that is difficult, but because bin Laden has 10 lookalikes. Two of them are north Africans and they all are in Afghanistan," he said, adding the only physical differences between them were birthmarks on their backs.

"bin Laden has repeatedly spoken about a third world war... He was saying 'we would enter a third world war in the coming century'," Abul Noor commented in response to being told Washington had evidence of Al Qaeda's role in the September attacks. He said bin Laden did not elaborate.

The newspaper said it had met Abul Noor, a north African Arab, in Madrid after a series of complicated contacts. Abul Noor did not disclose his real identity or nationality, but the paper said he belonged to Al Qaeda's European cells.

It said he joined Al Qaeda in 1998 and spent months in what he called spiritual and religious training before learning to use light weapons. He never met bin Laden in person.

The man showed scars on his body resulted from taking part in operations in Algeria, South Lebanon, Somalia and several Middle Eastern capitals. He said he had received training in the Middle East on how to make explosives and carry out kidnappings. He said without elaborating that it was dangerous for an Al Qaeda member to quit the organisation, adding the group used an array of modern technologies.

He said a foiled attempt to assassinate Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in 1995 was planned for three months in Somalia and Afghanistan and that the people who planned it were allocated $200,000 for the task.

Meanwhile, there were reports from the key Afghan city of Kandahar that tribal leaders tried to persuade the Taliban to lay down their weapons or face an attack by opposition forces.

Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, remained in control of Kandahar but had reshuffled his top administrative posts, according to Mullah Malang, a leader of a group of Pashtun tribal chiefs meeting in Quetta, Pakistan.

In refilling two posts with men sympathetic to the Pashtuns, Omar was trying to persuade the Pashtun chiefs that the Taliban are becoming more moderate.

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