In Pakistan, US official talks of progress in hunt for bin Laden

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The United States and its allies have moved closer to capturing Osama bin Laden in the past two months, a top US counterterrorism official said in a television interview broadcast yesterday.

''If he has a watch, he should be looking at it because the clock is ticking. He will be caught," Joseph Cofer Black, the State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, told Geo television network.

Black said progress has been made in the past two months, as Pakistan has arrested dozens of terror suspects, including Al Qaeda operatives.

Black, who briefed a group of Pakistani journalists after talks with officials in Islamabad on Friday, said he could not predict when bin Laden and other Al Qaeda fugitives might be nabbed.

''What I tell people [is] I would be surprised, but not necessarily shocked, if we wake up tomorrow and he's been caught along with all his lieutenants," he told Geo. ''That can happen because of the programs and infrastructure in place."

Bin Laden and his top associate, Ayman al-Zawahri, are thought to be hiding along the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Officials have disclosed no solid intelligence about bin Laden's whereabouts.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, and Black's visit was made weeks after Pakistani security forces captured Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted for the 1998 US Embassy bombings in eastern Africa, and Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani computer specialist allegedly linked to Al Qaeda operatives around the world. The arrests led to a terror warning in the United States, as well as arrests in Britain and the United Arab Emirates.

During the talks last week, Pakistan asked US officials for more helicopters as well as surveillance and communications equipment to help Pakistani forces guard border areas near Afghanistan, a Pakistani official said.

''We got a positive response from the American officials," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pakistan has deployed 70,000 troops along the Afghan border and conducted several military operations in the area this year.