Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain in Peshawar. (Reuters)

Peshawar, Nov. 25 (Reuters): Al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden cannot be hiding in Pakistan?s tribal lands on the Afghan border as Pakistani forces have combed the area and found no hint of him, a Pakistani army commander said today.

Bin Laden and his bodyguards could not go undetected in the rugged tribal lands, although pockets of al Qaida-backed fighters are battling Pakistani forces there, said Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain.

?He requires his own protection and the kind of security apparatus he is supposed to have around would give us a very big signature,? Hussain said in an interview in his well-fortified headquarters in the northwest city of Peshawar. ?There is not an inch of South Waziristan agency or the tribal area which we have not swept time and again and if he was here, I assure you he could not have escaped my ears and eyes.?

Hussain is military chief of northwest Pakistan and heads a campaign to clear out al Qaida militants, most of whom took refuge in Pakistan?s lawless border lands after US-led forces captured the Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001.

US commanders hunting for bin Laden in Afghanistan say they can?t find him there and he might be in Pakistan?s tribal areas. Other reports suggest he may have taken refuge in Kashmir but officials there say security is too tight for bin Laden to go unnoticed. Hussain said 75,000 government troops had been deployed in the area.