Washington, June 9: Pakistan ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani has indirectly refuted press reports that Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.

Replying to question in an interview with the CNN if Laden was hiding in his country’s tribal areas, Haqqani quipped that if he knew where the al Qaeda leader was hiding, he would collect the 50 million dollar bounty on offer for collaring him.

“But once doubts about each other are out of the way, I am sure they will get Osama Bin Laden,” he predicted.

Asserting that the opportunity to capture him at Tora Bora was missed, he said since then, the intelligence services of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US had not shared intelligence as they should have.

Asked if the US was failing to share information with Pakistan, Haqqani said what he meant was that there should be “real time co-operation” between the three countries and their intelligence services.

On a statement from Senator and now Democrats’ candidate for Presidential elections Barack Obama that if the US had actionable intelligence about a strike and Pakistan was failing to act, the US would act on its own, Haqqani said that the new government of Pakistan was fighting terrorism out of conviction.

He stressed that the PPP had gone to the polls on that precise issue since it had lost its leader, Benazir Bhutto, to terrorism.

“We are committed to acting on actionable intelligence ourselves, in partnership with the United States, in partnership with Afghanistan,” the Daily Times quoted him as saying.

When reminded that there were doubts felt by the US as to the security of information shared with Pakistan, he replied that it should be understood that “there’s a new sheriff in town” and the government will act in co-operation with the US to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

Asked for his reaction to Senator and Republicans Presidential candidate John McCain’s doubts over Pakistan’s seriousness about “getting the job done” when it came to fighting terrorism, Haqqani said that the new PPP government was engaged in formulating a strategy to get the job done because tactical moves alone do not constitute strategy. “We want to fight terrorism in all its dimensions, military, political and socio-economic,” he added. (ANI)