KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's government said on Friday Osama bin Laden had probably fled to Pakistan and said U.S. warplanes should soon halt bombing raids blamed for killing hundreds of innocent civilians since October 7.
The world's most wanted man had probably left Afghanistan for the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, interim Defense Minister General Mohammad Fahim said.
With the destruction of the Taliban and bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, there was little further need for U.S. bombing, Fahim said in the highest-level suggestion so far that it was time to end the aerial strikes.
Fahim also said in an interview with Reuters and Japanese reporters that agreement had been reached on the deployment of a foreign security force -- previously a source of disquiet for the Defense Ministry -- with some 3,000 foreign troops to be allowed into the country.
Most hideouts of the Taliban and bin Laden have been bombed to bits, but the air raids have continued and stray U.S. bombs have been blamed for scores of civilian deaths in recent days.
Tora Bora is a mountainous region in eastern Afghanistan, riddled with caves, and was thought to be the last redoubt of bin Laden's al Qaeda, blamed for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and perhaps for bin Laden himself.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said he could not rule out the possibility that bin Laden had crossed the 1,500 mile porous border into Pakistan's rugged and lawless tribal areas, but dismissed such reports as mere speculation.
The United States says it has no idea of the whereabouts of bin Laden, who taunted Washington in a videotape apparently shot earlier this month and aired on Wednesday.