Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden may no longer be able to run the militant network and has not been heard from for nearly a year, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.
Mr Rumsfeld said on a trip to Pakistan that the Bush administration still considers it a priority to capture the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, who is believed to be hiding somewhere in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
"I think it is interesting that we haven't heard from him for close to a year," Mr Rumsfeld told reporters en route to Islamabad.
"I don't know what it means, but I suspect in any event if he is alive and functioning that he is sending a major fraction of his time trying to avoid being caught," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"I have trouble believing he is able to operate sufficiently to be in a position of major command over a worldwide al Qaeda operation, but I could be wrong," he said.
Mr Rumsfeld's comments echoed earlier assessments by the US ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, but contradicted the assertion of al Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri in a video interview earlier this month that bin Laden's battle against the West was only just beginning.
The most recent al Qaeda message from bin Laden came on December 27th, 2004, when Al Jazeera television broadcast a videotape in which he urged Iraqis to boycott elections the following month.