A Taliban detainee in Pakistan claims to have information about Osama Bin¹ Laden²'s whereabouts in January or February of this year.

巴基斯坦一名塔利班囚犯称其知晓本拉登今年一二月份所在何处的信息。

Bin Laden is believed to be somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghan border

His claims cannot be verified but a leading American expert says his account should be investigated.

The detainee（被拘留者，未判决囚犯） claims to have met Osama Bin Laden numerous times before 9/11.

He says that earlier this year he met a trusted contact who had seen Bin Laden 15 to 20 days earlier across the border in Afghanistan.

"In 2009, in January or February I met this friend of mine. He said he had come from meeting Sheikh Osama, and he could arrange for me to meet him," he said.

According to the detainee, his contact is a Mehsud tribesman, responsible for getting al-Qaeda operatives based abroad to meetings with Bin Laden.

"He helps al-Qaeda people coming from other countries to get to the sheikh（酋长，族长）, so he can advise them on whatever they are planning for Europe or other places.

"The sheikh doesn't stay in any one place. That guy came from Ghazni, so I think that's where the sheikh was."

No-go areas

The province of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan has an increasingly strong Taliban presence. Large parts of the province are no-go areas for coalition³（合并，联合） and Afghan forces.

The detainee said that militants⁴ were avoiding Pakistani territory because of the risk of US drone（雄蜂，无人机） attacks.

"Pakistan at this time is not convenient for us to stay in because a lot of our senior people are being martyred（杀害，折磨） in drone attacks," he said.

The detainee can't be named for legal reasons.

According to a Pakistani security official he has close ties with leaders of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and was involved in kidnapping and fundraising（筹款，集资） operations.

We were given access to him twice in the past month. A Pakistani interrogator⁵（询问者） was listening in as he spoke⁶.

His account suits Pakistan, which maintains that Bin Laden is not on its soil although Britain and the US think otherwise.

But a leading US expert, former CIA analyst⁷ Bruce Riedel, says his story is plausible⁸（似真实的，似合理的） and should be investigated.

"The entire Western intelligence community, CIA and M16, have been looking for Osama Bin Laden for the last seven years and haven't come upon a source of information like this," he said.

"So if it's true - a big if - this is an extraordinary and important story.

"We know Osama Bin Laden is alive. We know that he is living somewhere in the badlands（荒地） along the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"What is extraordinary about this story is we have someone who has come forward and said, really for the first time, 'I met with Osama Bin Laden and I had the opportunity to met him again in the recent past'."

The detainee's account raises many questions - among them, what were his motives⁹ for talking?

Bruce Riedel says his story is a very important lead which ought to be tracked down. But that won't be easy.

Western interrogators may have lots of questions they would like to ask, but so far the detainee has been out of their reach.