All over the world, Muslim voices have united to condemn the US-led war on Iraq. Yet one man has been strangely silent.

Nearly three weeks after the war broke out, Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the self-styled leader of an anti-American jihad or holy war, has not said a word.

Government officials and analysts are beginning to wonder -- is he plotting something in some remote cave in the Afghan mountains, or could he be dead?

One thing is certain. If the bearded Islamic radical is alive, he will be smiling. His dream of a confrontation between ordinary Muslims and the United States seems to be coming true.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says the war will produce 'one hundred bin Ladens'.

"He ([Osama] will be very happy -- he will see this as a vindication of what he has been saying," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a senior Pakistani journalist who has interviewed bin Laden twice. "But I am surprised he hasn't reacted yet. That creates doubts he's alive."

As images of Iraqi civilian deaths flood television screens across the Muslim world, bin Laden's call for jihad is echoing out across the Middle East and parts of Asia.

Perhaps bin Laden is letting others do the talking for him. Pakistan's government says it is too early to draw any conclusions, but across the border in Afghanistan officials are beginning to sound the 'all clear'.

"The reason why he has not given any reaction to the Iraq issue is very important. It leaves no doubt that he has died," Afghan presidential spokesman Sayed Fazl Akbar said.

"In the past, he would issue statements, audio or video tapes on very small issues," Akbar said. "Why hasn't he spoken about such a big issue which dominates the world's politics and news headlines?"

The US military, which is searching Afghanistan for the remnants of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and their Taliban allies, maintains it has no conclusive proof whether bin Laden is alive or dead.

And in February US intelligence official said the Central Intelligence Agency had established that an audiotape broadcast by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite television was 'almost certainly' made by bin Laden.

On that occasion the Al Qaeda leader exhorted Muslims in Iraq to fight the 'American enemy'. Since then the silence has been deafening.

"The silence could be pregnant," retired Pakistani Brigadier Shaukat Qadir said. "I am not certain that he is alive, but if he is alive it could be that he is plotting something. He could be planning some grandstanding activity somewhere."

Senior Pakistani intelligence official, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, said it was too early to draw any firm conclusions. "Maybe he is not alive, possibly he is not communicating intentionally, or perhaps it is not safe for him to communicate."

Cheema said the arrests of several senior Al Qaeda officials in Pakistan this year indicated that the net was closing in around bin Laden. "Every day that passes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for him to communicate," he said.

Alive or dead, the bin Laden myth remains a powerful one. The tragic irony of the war in Iraq is that another myth is about to be born, according to Qadir.

"With Saddam Hussein, he has so many look-alikes, we may never know which one has been killed," he said. "The tragedy of this war is that Saddam is also becoming a hero."