Islamabad, June 15 (DPA) Pakistani authorities have detained a US national trying to cross into Afghanistan to hunt the elusive leader of terrorist group Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, police said Tuesday.

Gary Brooks Faulkner, 52, who comes from California, told officials that he was heading for the Afghan province of Nooristan on a mission to decapitate Osama bin Laden and his four accomplices.

Police recovered a one-metre sword, a dagger, a pistol and night-vision goggles from Faulkner, who has no connection to any US law enforcement agencies, said Mumtaz Ahmad, the district's top police investigator.

Faulkner, a kidney patient, arrived in Chitral district, 270 km north of Islamabad, June 3 and went missing from his hotel room Sunday night. He was later found by police in the district's Kalash valley, Ahmad said.

'He told us that the terrorists had harmed Americans and he himself wanted to search for and kill Osama,' Ahmad said. 'He is just a tourist who is not associated with any US agency. Possibly he only wants revenge for the 9/11 attacks'.

The detainee was being moved to Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, for further questioning in connection with the attempted illegal border crossing.

The self-styled 'Rambo' who has not been formally charged, has visited Pakistan seven times and Chitral three times.

Media reports have suggested that bin Laden, who has a price on his head from the US government and other organisations, is hiding in the pine-clad mountains on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He is believed to move frequently between the Chitral and Nooristan regions on either side of the border since escaping from the siege by US forces on the Tora Bora region in Afghanistan in early 2002.