Speaking today in a television interview from Islamabad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that it was her firm belief that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is still in Pakistan somewhere.

“I believe bin Laden is here in Pakistan and it would be very helpful if we could take him,” Clinton declared in an interview intersperced between high level meetings with Pakistani officials.

Earlier today Clinton announced roughly $500 million in additional foreign aid for Pakistan, and this evening she was said to have met with Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Parvez Kayani, presumably about pressing him for additional wars in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Clinton’s claims about bin Laden are the general consensus about where officials assume he is, but it appears to be little more than a guess. CIA director Leon Panetta admitted last month that the US hasn’t had any decent intelligence about where bin Laden is since “the early 2000′s.“

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