2:05pm UK, Friday April 29, 2005

An Islamist website has inadvertently triggered rumours that Osama bin Laden is dead.

The article about the al Qaeda leader carried a headline suggesting the Saudi fugitive had died.

Fugitive: Osama bin Laden

It prompted flutters on the financial markets and triggered rumours on internet sites of bin Laden's demise.

However, closer reading of the article revealed that the author was simply suggesting the 9/11 architect could die at any time and Muslims should be prepared for his death.

Yasser al-Siri, an Egyptian dissident who ran the Islamic Observation Centre in Britain and who is considered close to al Qaeda, told the Al Sharq al Awsat newspaper that bin Laden is alive.

Diplomats in Pakistan also said it was unlikely the world's most wanted man would have died without them hearing.

Bin Laden's current location is a mystery.

It is thought he is hiding out in the mountainous frontier region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

August Hanning, the head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence service, told a security conference this month that bin Laden had managed to disappear to Pakistan after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and remains there.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, a strong ally in the US-led war on terrorism, said in March that interrogation of al Qaeda operatives meant they knew where bin Laden was 10 months ago.

But the trail has since gone cold, he admitted.