The digitally-altered photo (r) has been aged from the 1998 file image (l)

The US State Department has issued digitally-altered photos showing how Osama Bin Laden may look now, aged 52.

Its 1998 file image of the al-Qaeda leader has been adapted to take account of a decade's worth of ageing, and possible changes to facial hair.

The digitally-altered photos on the State Department's website show two options for how he may look now - one with a full beard, and one without.

Osama Bin Laden founded al-Qaeda and is top of the US most-wanted list.

He is accused of being behind a number of atrocities, including the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in East Africa and the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.

Since then, his al-Qaeda network has been linked indirectly to bombings on the island of Bali in Indonesia and its capital Jakarta, as well as with suicide attacks in Casablanca, Riyadh and Istanbul.

After 9/11, al-Qaeda leaders are believed to have regrouped in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Bin Laden is still thought to be hiding in the mountainous region near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.