Bin Laden not hiding in Afghanistan-For Min

KABUL, Sep 11 (Reuters) Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is not hiding in Afghanistan, the insurgency-racked country'sforeign minister said today, the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

''I know that he is not in Afghanistan, but I don't have information where he is,'' Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told Reuters in an interview.

''Our intelligence information and activities of al Qaeda ... and also the information of Afghans in the anti-terror war all give ... information that he is not in Afghanistan,'' he said. The Taliban, the country's former rulers, sheltered bin Laden and his al Qaeda network prior to their overthrow in late 2001.

US-led forces have been searching for bin Laden since they toppled the Taliban government after it refused to hand him over. US officials believe the world's most wanted man is hiding in the mountainous, inaccessible area straddling the Afghan-Pakistani border.

''(Given) the enmity between him and the Afghan population ... because he was the main creator of a terrorist and dictatorship regime against the population of Afghanistan, it is impossible that he can find support among the civilians of Afghanistan,'' Spanta added.

''That is the main reason that I believe that he is not here,'' he added, saying bin Laden's capture was ''not important'' compared to the wider goal of destroying the international terrorist network active in the region.

Spanta's comments came ahead of reports that bin Laden had released a new videotape today, the second in a week to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks he masterminded.

REUTERS PJ AS1307