New York, Feb. 29 (Reuters): The US has struck a deal with Pakistan to allow American troops to hunt for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden this spring in an area of Pakistan where he is believed to be operating, the New Yorker magazine reported today.

Thousands of US troops will be deployed in northwest Pakistan in return for Washington’s support of President Pervez Musharraf’s pardon of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan who has admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, according to the report. Full disclosure of Khan’s activities would have exposed him as “the worst nuclear-arms proliferator in the world”, an intelligence official said.