The contents of the document, dated Sept. 21, or Thursday, were not confirmed by French or other intelligence sources. However, the DGSE transmitted the note to President Jacques Chirac and other officials, the newspaper said.

Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie "has demanded an investigation be carried out of this leak," a ministry statement said, adding that transmission of the confidential document could risk punishment.

Defense Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau, clarifying the statement, said that the DGSE document exists but that its contents - that bin Laden is allegedly dead - cannot be confirmed.

The DGSE, or Direction Generale des Services Exterieurs, indicated that its information came from a single source.

"According to a reliable source, Saudi security services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," said the intelligence report.

There have been periodic reports of bin Laden's illness or death in recent years but none has been proven accurate.

According to this document, Saudi security services were pursuing further details, notably the place of his burial.

"The chief of al-Qaida was a victim of a severe typhoid crisis while in Pakistan on August 23, 2006," the document says. His geographic isolation meant that medical assistance was impossible, the French report said, adding that his lower limbs were allegedly paralyzed. On Sept. 4, Saudi security services had their first information on bin Laden's alleged death, the unconfirmed document reported.

In Pakistan, a senior official of that country's top spy agency, the ISI or Directorate of Inter-Service Intelligence, said he had no information to confirm bin Laden's whereabouts or that he might be dead. The official said he believed the report could be fabricated. The official was not authorized to speak publicly on the topic and spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. Embassy officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan also said they could not confirm the French report.

Meanwhile, Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told a press conference here that "I have 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 is convinced that bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

The report, which is dated Sept. 21 and has been shown to French President Jacques Chirac, said, "According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," according to L'Est Republican.

This has caused the media's wide attention to the current condition of bin Laden, who is believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and is the United States' most wanted man with an award of 25 million U.S. dollars.

About 20,000 coalition forces are being deployed in eastern Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda, Taliban and other anti-government militants there, while some 21,000 ISAF soldiers are staying in other regions to keep security and facilitate reconstruction.

Saudi-born bin Laden had been harbored in Afghanistan until the U.S.-led Afghan War toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Since then, the al-Qaeda chief has been widely believed to hide in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It can now be reported that Bushfraud threatened to bomb Pakistan just one week ago when Musharraf threatened to tell the world that Bin Laden has been dead for three years.

P.S. It should be noted that when Khalid Muhammad was arrested in Pakistan, the alleged mastermind of 9-11, a U.S.intelligence officer, aka a Gary Best employee named Spelezio was allowed to escape interrogation by the FBI on orders directly from Bush himself.

Spelezio had been linked to the operationals of the 9-11 script aka cell phone calls. Pakistani officials were also concerned that Spelezio had compromised their own Intelligence services.

P.P.S. When Khalid Muhammad is tried in Bush's Kangaroo Courts will Muhammad be allowed to call Spelezio as a witness or will the rules of evidence forbid Spelezio, a national security asset and a 9-11 co-conspirator from testifying?

"If I were still president we'd have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him," Clinton claimed, referring to U.S. attempts find bin Laden along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. "Now I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But you do know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq."

Clinton was referring to the 21,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. has more than 140,000 troops in Iraq.

"The record paints a very different picture than what President Clinton is suggesting," White House spokesman Peter Watkins said. "Looking forward, we will fight the war by staying on the offense."

In defending his record on terrorism from conservative critics, Clinton said America did not have a "comprehensive anti-terrorism operation," until his administration took office. Clinton said he authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to kill bin Laden after the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

"We took vigorous actions after the African embassies," Clinton said. "We probably nearly got bin Laden."

The USS Cole, a U.S. Navy ship, was bombed in a Yemeni port in December 2000. Clinton said he had plans drawn up to attack Afghanistan, oust the ruling Taliban regime and hunt for bin Laden.

Clinton said that plan was never put into effect because the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to certify that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the Cole.

"I tried and I failed to get bin Laden," Clinton admitted. "I regret it, but I did try."