Islamabad, Oct. 30 (Reuters): The Pakistani bureau of al-Jazeera television received the latest videotape of Osama bin Laden, in which he warned the US of more attacks like those on September 11, 2001, its bureau chief said today.

?Someone came yesterday and dropped an envelope at our gate. When I opened and played it, it was a great scoop,? Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan said, adding that he did not know who had delivered the tape.

Zaidan, a Syrian, met bin Laden several times before the September 11 attacks and had published a book based on his interviews with him in 2002. ?I am absolutely sure it is him (bin Laden),? he said, referring to the person on the videotape.

Zaidan also received an audiotape from bin Laden in 2002 praising the bomb blasts on the Indonesian holiday resort of Bali and warning the US and its allies of death.

The US military commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Barno, said last month he believed bin Laden was most likely to be hiding somewhere in a remote part of Pakistan.

However, Pakistani officials say they do not believe he is in Pakistan.

Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the fact that the tape had emerged in Pakistan was no proof that the world?s most wanted man was in the country.

?It is an absurd argument,? he said, adding that Pakistan had deployed the maximum number of troops along its border with Afghanistan to track down Islamic militants.

?We have our area under observation,? he said. ?It?s more likely he is in an area which is not fully under observation and that is outside Pakistan. No one is sure where he is.?