St. Louis ? Muhammad Atef, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, is supposed to be dead.

But eight months after the military commander and chief planner in Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror ring was reported killed in a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan, Atef is still a wanted man at least, technically.

There’s a bounty of up to $25 million for Atef’s capture or conviction, and he’s under indictment in New York for his alleged role in the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

And Atef, an Egyptian national, is still on the list of “most-wanted” terrorists maintained by the FBI and its European counterpart, Interpol. President Bush’s administration has accused Atef of planning the Sept. 11 attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Back on Nov. 16, U.S. military officials said Atef was killed in a bombing raid by allied warplanes.

In Washington, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said that Atef’s photo and profile which fill the No. 19 spot of the bureau’s online gallery of 22 “most-wanted” terrorists will stay up until the FBI has “official” confirmation that he’s dead.

Officials at Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch via e-mail that it also was awaiting official confirmation of Atef’s fate before it takes him off its list.

Bresson said he believes that Atef is dead. But, Bresson said that if Atef’s photo was removed from the “most-wanted” list, “then we’re telling people that all charges against him have been dropped.”