London, July 12 (IANS) Pakistan has said that Osama bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda leaders were not in the country and hence the US missile attacks in the country were futile, a media report said Sunday.
“If Osama was in Pakistan we would know, with all the thousands of troops we have sent into the tribal areas in recent months,” Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik told The Sunday Times. “If he and all these four or five top people were in our area they would have been caught, the way we are searching.”

He added: “According to our information, Osama is in Afghanistan, probably Kunar, as most of the activities against Pakistan are being directed from Kunar.”

Though the US does not directly acknowledge the missile attacks on Pakistani territory by drones aircraft, Pakistani officials say over 40 attacks have been carried out by US drones in the past 10 months, killing hundreds of people.

Malik described the attacks as a waste of time as the Al Qaeda leadership was on the other side of the border in eastern Afghanistan.

“They’re getting mid-level people not big fish,” he said. “And they are counterproductive because they are killing civilians and turning locals against our government. We try to win people’s hearts, then one drone attack drives them away.”

The newspaper report said Pakistan’s military admitted being helped by the US surveillance flights over the tribal areas as well as the Swat region, where thousands of troops have been fighting Taliban militants, forcing more than two million people to flee.

Malik further said Pakistan’s efforts to fight the Taliban were hampered by the “failure of American and British troops in Afghanistan to monitor their side”.

“Two years ago we were being criticised by the West for our ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence agency) helping the Taliban cross into Afghanistan.

“Now we’re finding the same situation - they’re coming from the other side, bringing arms and fighters from Helmand into Baluchistan and into Waziristan. Should we say it’s Afghan or western intelligence helping them,” said Malik.