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AL- QAEDA may be down but it is definitely not out. And the leader of the terrorist organisation, Osama Bin Laden, might still be alive and kicking.

Foreign Policy, a leading foreign affairs journal, has claimed in an almanac on the al- Qaeda published its May- June issue that Bin Laden may have failed to achieve the outfit’s central goal, but terrorists led by him remain a threat to Western interests overseas.

Titled ‘ The Almanac of al- Qaeda’, the article has been authored by Peter Bergen, who has written two books on the terror outfit, and Katherine Tiedemann.

The almanac said there was ample evidence that Bin Laden was still alive and heading Al- Qaeda, and reaffirms the organisation’s presence in Pakistan.

“ At the heart of the al- Qaeda network — now centred in Pakistan — several hundred more ‘ free agent’ foreigners, mostly Arabs and Uzbeks, are all but in name al- Qaeda personnel,” it said, quoting a US intelligence official.

It also quotes CIA director Leon Panetta as saying that “ Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Al- Zawahiri, were hiding either in the northern tribal areas of Pakistan or in North Waziristan or somewhere in that vicinity”. The almanac also talked about the likely successors of Bin Laden. “ One of the most likely successors is Abu Yahya Al- Libi, the group’s young, media- friendly, hardline theologian,” the almanac said.

Al- Libi, a 47- year- old Libyan, was one of the high- profile captives who escaped from the Bagram detention facility on July 10, 2005. He is the al- Qaeda spokesman and is probably located in the AfPak region.

The other likely successors listed are: Mustafa Abu, Al- Yazid and some of Bin Laden’s sons.

Al- Yazid is now the group’s commander in Afghanistan.