Waiting for Bin Laden

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According to the Guardian (whose credibility around here is somewhere between absolute zero and the twilight zone) Mansoor Ijaz—often promoted as a Bin Laden “expert”—says Osama is in Pakistan, and that the US entered into an agreement with Pakistan not to chase him too stenuously, in order to avoid Pakistani civil unrest: Inside story of the hunt for Bin Laden. (Hat tip: Bala Ambati.)

The Pakistanis feared that to capture or kill Bin Laden so soon after a deeply unpopular war in Afghanistan would incite civil unrest in Pakistan and would trigger a spate of revenge al-Qaida attacks on western targets across the world.

“There was a judgment made that it would be more destabilising in the longer term,” he said. “There would still be the ability to get him at a later date when it was more appropriate.”

The Americans, according to Mr Ijaz, accepted the argument, not least because of the shift in focus to the impending war in Iraq. So the months that followed were centred on taking down not Bin Laden, but the “retaliation infrastructure” of al-Qaida.

The Guardian’s reporter, Rory McCarthy, summarizes the possible reasons why Bin Laden hasn’t been found…

“In the end it was just another flop,” said Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who has met Bin Laden three times and studied al-Qaida in detail.

“The intelligence agencies have totally failed with al-Qaida. They are such highly motivated people in al-Qaida that it is very difficult to break into the rank and file of the organisation.”

That is one of the reasons why, almost two years after the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden has yet to be found.

But a Guardian inquiry has revealed that there are others. Experts who have been following the attempts of the Pakistanis and the US to find the al-Qaida leader have suggested that:

� The Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, struck a deal with the US not to seize Bin Laden after the Afghan war for fear of inciting trouble in his own country;

� The al-Qaida leader is being protected by a three elaborate security rings which stretch 120 miles in diameter; and

� The Pakistani special forces looking for him are no closer than they were a year ago.

…but never mentions what I still believe is the most likely possibility: that Crazy Sammy has been decomposing in an Afghanistan cave since the US bombed Tora Bora.

Think of the incredible morale boost for the jihadis if Osama were to show up in a new video on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and in the black markets of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Iraq and the West Bank, exhorting the faithful to rise up in a global holy war against the Great Satan who has defiled the holiest places of Islam. Do you really think he would risk making audio tapes and distributing them—but not video? Video is real. Video is immediate and undeniable. It’s TV! The magic picture box! Video would drive the jihadis nuts.

Not a chance. He’s defunct. Deceased. Worm chow. Trimming the flowers in the bone yard. Decaying protein paste on a cave wall. This is an ex-would-be-caliph.

If I see a video that proves otherwise, I’ll recant this opinion. But not until then.

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Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
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