Osama's silence a sign of 'dead or alive'?

Washington, Nov 20: A White House spokesperson has said that despite his continuing silence the US administration had no information whether al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was dead.

The statement came in the wake of a recent broadcast of a new message from al-Qaeda's number two Ayman Zawahiri. "I would have to refer you to the intelligence community for that. I do not believe that we have any intelligence that suggests that he is not living," The News quoted White House spokesperson Dana Perino as saying in reply to a question whether the new message from Zawahiri raised any new questions about Osama's fate.

In an Internet audio message released on Wednesday, Zawahiri ridiculed Obama as a 'house Negro' and warned him against sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Perino dismissed Zawahiri's verbal broadside against US president-elect Barack Obama as 'more despicable and pathetic comments by al-Qaeda terrorists'.

She said, "I think that the comments that al-Qaeda makes are totally irrational. They attack everything and anything that is American. And so they just look for targets of opportunity, both verbally and physically, and that is why we have to stop them."

ANI