KABUL (Reuters) - A top Taleban official said on Tuesday he had no idea why Saudi terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden had left his southern Afghan sanctuary. "We don`t know and don`t have any reason to say why Osama has vanished," chief Taleban spokesman Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil told Reuters from the southern city of Kandahar. The official told the independent Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency that bin Laden`s family "is in Afghanistan in areas under the control of the Taleban". Bin Laden was reported to have four wives in his 100-strong retinue while he was living close to Kandahar, the Taleban`s spiritual capital in southern Afghanistan. Muttawakil was reacting to press reports that said bin Laden might have left Afghanistan several weeks ago after being snubbed by the Taleban`s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Taleban said on Saturday that bin Laden, whose extradition is sought by the United States, had "gone missing" after spending most of the past three years as a "guest" in Afghanistan. Media reports have placed bin Laden inside Afghanistan in territory held by the anti-Taleban opposition and in places as far apart as Iraq and Chechnya. His disappearance followed new U.S. warnings that it reserved the right to use military force in pursuit of bin Laden, who has been charged with masterminding the bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 250 people. Omar and other senior Taleban officials insist that bin Laden was not asked to leave and denied any suggestion that his disappearance was linked to new U.S. pressure. U.S. and British officials held talks with the Taleban 10 days ago in neighbouring Pakistan and delivered tough demands concerning bin Laden, who has been blamed for a string of terrorist attacks in the Middle East and elsewhere. The Taleban later said it cut off bin Laden`s satellite telephone and wireless, restricted his visitors and warned him not to use Taleban territory to plan or launch attacks. It put a 10-man guard on bin Laden, which has also disappeared. Muttawakil said the fighters were not under orders to stay in touch with the Taleban but to watch over their "guest". The United Nations pulled out all international staff from Afghanistan last August after a senior U.N. military officer was killed in a Kabul street in apparent retaliation for U.S. missile attacks on suspected bin Laden training camps in southern Afghanistan.