“Well, we don’t know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we’d go get him,” Gates told ABC News when asked if Pakistan was doing enough to catch the terrorist mastermind.

His remarks follow reports that bin Laden could be hiding in the Pakistani side of the Pak-Afghan border.

Asked when was the last time the US had any good intelligence on Osama’s whereabouts, the defence secretary said: “I think it’s been years.”

About reports on a Taliban detainee’s claim in Pakistan that one of his contacts had met bin Laden in Afghanistan early this year, Gates said he could not confirm this.

The unnamed Taliban detainee had recently claimed in an interview to BBC that his “friend” had met bin Laden and told him that he could arrange a meeting for him also.