Since September 11, the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been fodder for the rumor mill. Bin Laden sightings pop up now and then, but the rumors have never been substantiated. Since bin Laden fled the fighting in Tora Bora in 2001, U.S. intelligence has had few leads to follow up on. But bin Laden is widely believed to be operating in Pakistan’s rugged tribal regions of the Northwest Frontier Province. The latest rumor comes from Ahmad Farooq, a Pakistani Pashtun Taliban fighter, who claimed to have last seen bin Laden in the Chitral district of the Northwest Frontier Province in September of 2003. Farooq’s story cannot be substantiated, but he claimed bin Laden traveled with a small detachment of bodyguards and spent time in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and China. Adnkronos International reports: