The Pentagon acknowledged today it had no clue where chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden is and did not even know whether the Saudi-born extremist was alive or dead.
As forces on the ground searched in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan, deputy Defence Secretary, Mr Paul Wolfowitz said in Washington he did not know whether the Islamic extremist was hiding out in one of hundreds of caves in the region.
"I think it's possible he could be dead in the bottom of one of them," he said, adding, however: "We don't know where he is now, and he could be on the run.
"I'm trying to emphasise how much we don't know about this man's whereabouts," Mr Wolfowitz said.
Any intelligence on bin Laden's recent whereabouts was second-hand, he said.
"We're not talking to people who are at least telling us that they met with bin Laden or they talked with bin Laden. I think one guy claims that he saw bin Laden from several hundred yards away. It's that quality of information," he said.
But he also stressed there were few countries that would willingly shelter the world's most wanted man.
AFP