Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding close to each other in houses in northwest Pakistan, but are not together, a senior NATO official said. "Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave," said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the intelligence matters involved. Rather, al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services, the official said. Pakistan has repeatedly denied protecting members of the al Qaeda leadership. The official said the general region where bin Laden is likely to have moved around in recent years ranges from the mountainous Chitral area in the far northwest near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley, which adjoins Afghanistan's Tora Bora, one of the Taliban strongholds during the U.S. invasion in 2001.
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"Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave," official says
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The leadership is living in relative comfort, he says
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Bin Laden likely moved around in an area of rugged terrain
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U.S. special envoy says there's nothing new to the report
The official continued to stress the urgency of getting the @placeholder government to deal with the multitude of problems it faces.