WAR ON TERROR U.S. turns its focus to elusive bin Laden

A large reward hasn't been an effective tool in catching the Al-Qaida leader.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Whether he is holed up in a mountain cave or enjoying the hospitality of a local tribesman, Osama bin Laden has little reason to fear the same fate as Saddam Hussein any time soon, according to Afghan officials involved in the hunt for Al-Qaida's leader.
More than two years and $20 billion after U.S. forces set out to find the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bin Laden remains as elusive as ever, officials said.
"If they catch him, it will be by accident," said Gen. Hilaluddin Hilal, Afghanistan's deputy interior minister in charge of security.
U.S. officials promised Monday that Saddam's capture would re-energize the hunt for bin Laden and his Al-Qaida associates and allies.
"Saddam is no longer a problem now, so bin Laden is the focus," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said. The capture of Saddam "shows that with determination and good work it can happen," he added.
But there is no reason to believe U.S. forces are any closer to finding the Saudi exile than they were when he gave them the slip in the mountains of Tora Bora in 2001.
Where is he?
Since then, the rumor mill has put him in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kashmir, Pakistan's major cities and even China. He also has been reported to be dead, from kidney disease or injuries received in the intensive U.S. bombardment of Tora Bora.
Afghan and U.S. officials said they believe he most likely is roaming the frontier wilderness straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border, home to the fiercely independent-minded Pashtun tribe.
The area stretches 1,500 miles from the bleak deserts of Baluchistan in the south to the peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains in the north. The hunt is complicated by the forbidding nature of the terrain and also by the complex history of the tribal region, which was divided by the British but has never fully been brought under the authority of any sovereign government.
Whereas Saddam and his coterie always were vulnerable to the treachery of anti-Saddam Iraqis, bin Laden remains protected by Pashtun customs and culture and by the fiercely Islamic loyalties of the local tribesmen on both sides of the border.
The offer of a $25 million reward, an unimaginable fortune in this impoverished region, means nothing against the rigid code of tribal honor that requires tribesmen to offer hospitality to any stranger in need, said Mohammed Omar Babrakzai, a Pashtun who is Afghanistan's deputy minister for border and tribal affairs. No Pashtun could afford to betray a guest -- he would become an outcast from his tribe and family forever, Babrakzai said.
Other factors
Privately, U.S. officials have expressed doubts about the degree of cooperation from Pakistan's government in the hunt for the Al-Qaida and Taliban rebels. U.S. forces must defer to Pakistani sovereignty when taking the hunt into Pakistani territory, and they are reluctant to share intelligence with Pakistani officials for fear it will be leaked by Islamic sympathizers within the military.
The U.S. military also never poured the resources into Afghanistan that it devoted to Iraq. The last time U.S. forces pinned down bin Laden's whereabouts was in December 2001, when fleeing Al-Qaida fighters had taken refuge in a complex of mountain caves. Instead of committing ground troops to the battle, the U.S. relied on local Afghan allies who appear to have helped bin Laden and his associates slip away.
Also, U.S. troops have always been more thinly spread in Afghanistan than they are in Iraq. The $10 billion a year military operation comprises 8,500 U.S. troops, about 4,500 of which are combat troops, compared with more than 130,000 in Iraq, a country of equivalent size. Even at its peak, the coalition force in Afghanistan never numbered more than 16,000.
There are also an unspecified number of Special Forces soldiers strung out along the border zone, but many of them were relocated to Iraq starting over a year ago.
Rugged terrain
Even with more troops, it might not be any easier to find bin Laden. U.S. forces quickly narrowed the search for Saddam to a relatively small triangle of territory around his hometown, a flat, farming region crisscrossed by roads that made it easy to respond swiftly to intelligence about his whereabouts.
Bin Laden is thought to be hiding in terrain so rugged that there are no roads, amid peaks so high that they can only be scaled on foot or in ravines so deep that they can't be penetrated by satellite surveillance. Sightings of bin Laden are rare, and when reliable ones do occur, they often reach officials long after he has moved on, Afghan intelligence officials say.
But even without any specific leads, Afghan officials say they are confident bin Laden would be caught. "Today, tomorrow, sooner or later, we will catch him," said presidential spokesman Jawad Lodin. "And I wish it had been six months ago."