Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday hinted that Osama bin Laden could still be hiding in the region bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"He is in the region...That is if he hasn't run away," Karzai said, somewhat cautiously, during an interactive session with the audience after his address at the fourth HT Leadership Summit in the Capital.

A circumspect Karzai refused to go into the details of the whereabouts of the Al-Qaeda leader, who, it is often claimed, has taken shelter in the villages on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan.

At the outset of his address, Karzai made it clear that he was always cautious when talking about Islamabad in New Delhi and vice versa, as both were close friends of Kabul.

In response to a question if the extremist Taliban movement that grew from the Afghan people's struggle against the Soviet occupation could have been avoided, Karzai answered in the affirmative saying terrorism cannot serve "any interests" anywhere in the world.