'Pak's efforts to catch Osama half-hearted'

Osama bin Laden likely is living in Pakistan, Afghanistan's foreign minister has said.

Osama bin Laden likely is living in Pakistan, but that country's efforts to catch him have been "half-hearted" so far, Afghanistan's foreign minister said on Saturday.

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"According to all that we know, he actually is living in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border," Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said on Saturday.

"Our neighbour could surely catch him and put him on trial," he was quoted as telling Germany's Bild am Sonntag in a preview of an interview being published on Sunday.

"But attempts to do this have to our knowledge always been half-hearted," he said.

Earlier this month, a top US counterterrorism official, Henry Crumpton, said that parts of Pakistan are a "safe haven" for militants and the Al-Qaeda leader was more likely to be hiding there than in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan has dismissed assertions that it is not doing enough to track down militants.