Pakistan said today the United States had not given it any information about the presence of al-Qaeda leaders.
After US intelligence chief John Negroponte said the leaders were hiding in Pakistan, the country's military spokesman said: "We have no such information nor has any such thing been communicated to us by any US authority."
Washington's ally has always contended that Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri could be either side of the rugged, porous border with Afghanistan.
But in an unusually direct statement, Mr Negroponte yesterday named Pakistan as the centre of an al-Qaeda web that radiated out to the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
In a testimony to a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mr Negroponte wrote, without naming bin Laden or Zawahri, that al-Qaeda leaders are holed up in a secure hideout in Pakistan.
He said they were rebuilding a network that has been decimated by the capture or killing of hundreds of al-Qaeda members since the September 11, 200,1 attacks on the United States.
Many security analysts suspect that bin Laden is likely to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal regions or neighbouring districts of North West Frontier Province.
There has also been speculation that he may have died, though intelligence agencies say they have not picked up any supporting evidence.