US Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview Sunday that he did not know if the al Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden was still alive. Asked if the elusive bin Laden was alive, Cheney said: "I don't know and I'm guessing he is."
"We've had certain pieces of evidence become available from time to time, there'll be a photograph released or something that allows the intelligence community to judge that he is still alive," Cheney told Fox News on Sunday.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said in a speech on November 13 that bin Laden remains deeply isolated and has been forced to devote much of his energy to his own security. Hayden suggested that bin Laden was hiding somewhere in the remote Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, where he said al Qaeda has regrouped.
President George W. Bush indicated on December 9 that bin Laden was still alive, but said that the al Qaeda mastermind and chief deputy Ayman Zawahiri would eventually get their due.
Bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, has claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks against New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people and prompted the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Despite a massive manhunt and a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head, he has evaded capture and has regularly taunted the United States and its allies through warnings issued via video and audio, mainly on the Internet.