Residents in a remote region in Pakistan said leaflets were dropped there on Thursday offering rewards for the capture of bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden seemed to be alive but added he was unlikely to be in Pakistan, where suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested last weekend.

Officers of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps told Reuters Pakistani forces had launched an operation on Thursday, involving a few Americans, in pursuit of al Qaeda suspects in the Ribat region, where the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran meet.

But, Pakistani and U.S. officials rejected reports that a new operation was under way specifically targeting bin Laden.

The arrest of Mohammed raised hopes that interrogators could get leads on the location of the world's most-wanted man, who has evaded U.S. forces since a U.S. bombing campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.

U.S. officials said this week they believed bin Laden was hiding in the rugged tribal borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Musharraf told CNN in an interview broadcast on Friday Pakistani intelligence agencies were active all over the country tracking down any leads they could get, including in border areas with Afghanistan. But he said bin Laden could not be in Pakistan.

"He wouldn't be hiding alone or with one person...he seems to be alive," he said. "He would be moving with a large number of bodyguards. He can't be in Pakistan."

A Pakistani Frontier Corps officer said the operation in Ribat involved "lots of Pakistanis and very few Americans."
"It started 4 p.m. on Thursday and is continuing," he said.

Colonel Roger King, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said U.S. forces based in that country were not involved in any major new operation on the Pakistani border.

"We are performing our normal duties, regular patrols, but nothing, there is no special big operation along the border."

Thousands of U.S. troops have been deployed in Afghanistan for more than a year hunting for al Qaeda and Taliban remnants, concentrating their activities in the Pakistan border region.

LEAFLET DROPS

A resident of Dalbandin, 350 km (218 miles) east of Ribat, said pamphlets were dropped on Thursday in the Chagai border area with Afghanistan offering rewards for bin Laden and other al Qaeda figures. He said U.S. helicopters were seen on Thursday.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed rejected reports of a military operation in pursuit of bin Laden in the area.

"This is totally false and we don't know where Osama is." he told reporters. "The people who have given this statement are totally wrong. We don't know anything. He is not in Pakistan."

Musharraf said Pakistani security agencies had been on to Mohammed for almost a month before arresting him and agents were following up leads on other al Qaeda members.

Documents seized during the arrest suggested bin Laden was alive and that the two had been in contact, a senior Pakistani security official said on Thursday.

He said Pakistani security forces had intensified operations in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, where several al Qaeda and Taliban militants have been arrested in the past. Ribat is in Baluchistan.

Musharraf told CNN that Mohammed had been giving "varying statements" about his contacts with bin Laden.

"But this is preliminary investigation. I think more will follow when a detailed investigation is done."

The security official said the documents found at a house in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi where authorities say Mohammed was arrested, provided an important insight into al Qaeda.

He did not give details on what the documents contained to suggest bin Laden was still alive, but said there were other indications the al Qaeda leader had survived the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan in 2001.

He said one indication came from an audio tape purportedly from bin Laden that had been aired recently by the Qatar-based, Arabic-language al-Jazeera television station.

Pakistan said this week it had handed Mohammed over to U.S. custody and he was probably sent to Afghanistan.

PHOTO CAPTION

Pakistani and U.S. forces were searching for al Qaeda members on March 7, 2003 in a mountainous area near the borders with Afghanistan  and Iran amid persistent reports that Osama bin Laden  could be in the vicinity. Residents in the remote region said leaflets were dropped there on Thursday offering rewards for the capture of bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. Bin Laden is shown during in this November, 2001 file photo. ( Daily Dawn/Reuters)