The man the United States accused of masterminding attacks on its embassies, the millionaire Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, says Washington's attempts to disrupt his finances have had little effect.

Interviewed in exile in Afghanistanby Time magazine, Mr bin Laden said the US had been trying since 1993 to starve him of funds and arrest him, but it had failed.

However, the information minister for the Taleban administration in Afghanistan Amir Khan Mutaqi said that as Mr Bin Laden's overseas funds had been frozen, he had no money to finance either military or civilian projects in Afghanistan.

Mr Bin Laden again denied that he was directly responsible for the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last August, in which well over two hundred people were killed, but said other people had responded to his instigation.