Reports circulating Afghanistan which say al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had died of an illness couldn't be confirmed by NATO and the US led coalition, said the military on Sunday.

"About the reported death of Osama bin Laden, this is what we'll say: coalition forces could not confirm the reports," Marcelo Calero, a coalition spokesman told Xinhua.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told a press conference in Kabul, "I've read the interesting reports about bin Laden's death but I have no information about this issue."

On Saturday a French regional newspaper, L'Est Republican, quoted a French secret service report as saying that Saudi Arabia was convinced bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

The newspaper's report, dated September 21, which has been shown to French President Jacques Chirac says, "According to a usually reliable source the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead." 

This has caused wide media speculation about bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, who is the United States' most wanted man with a reward of US$25 million on his head. 

Around 20,000 coalition personnel are deployed in eastern Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda, Taliban members and other anti-government militants while some 21,000 ISAF soldiers are stationed in other regions to provide security and facilitate reconstruction.

Saudi-born bin Laden had been in Afghanistan until the US-led Afghan War toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001. Since then the al-Qaeda leader has been widely believed to be hiding in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2006)