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BERLIN, Sunday (Reuters)

Osama bin Laden is alive, probably in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence network said in a newspaper interview due to be published on Sunday.

"Given the information we have we are convinced that bin Laden is still alive," August Hanning, president of the Bundesnachrichtendienst agency, told Welt am Sonntag newspaper. Bin Laden is Washington's main suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"He is still the figurehead of al Qaeda, but doesn't appear to move around very much, and if at all, in a very conspiratorial way," Hanning said.

Hanning said there were an estimated 5,000 al Qaeda and Taliban supporters still in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Others had returned to their countries of origin. "They are preparing new attacks from their new locations. They will do all they can to strike again. We have to be prepared for that," Hanning told the newspaper, which released the interview ahead of publication on Sunday.

Hanning said major attacks such as the September 11 suicide assaults had taken place with bin Laden's blessing, but that he had not been involved in operational planning.

"He didn't prepare the attacks operationally, probably didn't even know all the details of the preparations," said Hanning.

He added that the September 11 attacks had cost al Qaeda little more than one million dollars. Bin Laden now saw even more reason to attack the United States because he wanted to exact revenge for the U.S.-led campaign that ousted Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, Hanning added.

His comments follow a statement on Wednesday by a man claiming to be a spokesman for al Qaeda that bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar were alive and well.

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