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| Bin Laden: the elusive Pimpernel |
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Justin Huggler August 08 2004 at 01:57PM |
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Somewhere, a man huddles in the shadows, speaking into a tape recorder, bringing his latest message to the outside world. His face is instantly recognisable. There is a $25-million (about R155 million) price tag on his head, and just a snippet of information on his whereabouts could make a man rich for life. He is the most wanted man in the world, but for more than three years, nobody has been able to find a trace of Osama bin Laden's whereabouts.
The central al-Qaeda organisation has been decimated since 2001. Estimates vary, but as many as 3 400 out of 4 000 members are said to have been captured or killed, according to experts. The continued bombings and other attacks are believed to be the work of related groups, many of whose militants were trained by Bin Laden's organisation in Afghanistan. But if the organisation has been hit badly, its most senior commanders, Bin Laden and his mentor Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain elusive. Bin Laden, it appears, has pulled off one of the most remarkable disappearing acts in history. Or has he? Rumours abound that he has already been captured by the US, or maybe Pakistan, and that his captors are waiting for the perfect moment to announce his capture: just in time for Bush's re-election bid, for example, or in order for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to wring the most glittering rewards from the US. The internet is bursting with innuendo and speculation on the possibility, but respected sources insist they are not to be taken seriously. If Bin Laden has been captured, then his captors have pulled off a disappearing act as extraordinary as his own. Not one official has given the slightest hint of it. Not one sardonic smile. The official version is still that he is in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan; which side he is on depends on which side you ask the question. Ask the Americans or President Hamid Karzai's interim government in Afghanistan, and they'll tell you Bin Laden is in Pakistan. Ask in Pakistan, and the authorities will tell you he's in Afghanistan. Everyone is passing the buck across the border. The area is certainly a prime hiding place. The border is 2 430km long and runs through some of the wildest and most inaccessible terrain on earth. "Even if Pakistan and Afghanistan were to put their complete armies there, they couldn't seal the border," says Dr Rohan Gunaratna, the author of Inside al-Qaeda. Much of the land on either side of the border is populated by Pashtun tribesmen whose loyalties to Bin Laden and al-Qaeda date back to the mujahideen war against the Soviets and who have little sympathy for the US, the new Afghan government or the Pakistani authorities. The Americans claim they have combed the Afghan side of the border, and the Afghan government has repeatedly accused Pakistan of not doing enough. But, in fact, almost all the major successes in the hunt for al-Qaeda have been made in Pakistan. The country has seen the most high-profile targets arrested to date: Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of September 11; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, believed to be the 20th hijacker who couldn't make it because he couldn't get a visa; and only last week, Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who is one of the prime suspects in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. According to Gunaratna, 470 al-Qaeda members have been captured in Pakistan. In recent months there has been more action on the Pakistani side of the border than ever before. In March, the army sent 70 000 soldiers into South Waziristan, a tribal area where the army had never gone before under a long-standing arrangement with the tribes that dated back to British colonial times. A welter of excitement followed when Musharraf said a high-value target had been pinned down. The speculation, fuelled by official sources, was that it was Zawahiri, but he never showed up. The Pakistani authorities have blocked journalists, foreign and local, from entering South Waziristan for months now. Even the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations have been refused access. American special forces advisers and intelligence appear to have been heavily involved in South Waziristan, despite Pakistan's repeated insistence that US troops are not operating on its soil. The word in Islamabad is that the FBI has an office in the city, from which it is directing the hunt for Bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda figures. But, like so much on this subject, the claim is impossible to confirm. But there are many in Pakistan who question whether Bin Laden is in the border region at all. "It's an assumption," says Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai. "Most of the arrests in Pakistan have been in urban areas. What does this tell you? That these guys were all hiding in big cities." Against this theory, officials argue that Bin Laden is too distinctive to be able to hide in a city. With so much money on his head, someone would spot him. Then there are those who argue that Bin Laden may be being protected by rogue elements within Pakistan's own security forces. Recent press reports in Pakistan pointed out the disturbingly high number of militant attacks in which members of the security forces have been involved. The Pakistani military and intelligence establishment worked for years alongside Bin Laden's organisation in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and if the current leadership is thought to be sincere in the hunt for Bin Laden, some of the lower-ranking officers are believed to remain highly sympathetic to his cause. But there are those in Pakistan who suggest it is not even in Musharraf's interest to capture Bin Laden, if he is in the country. "There is a view among some that they don't really want to pick OBL [Osama bin Laden] up, because if they do, then Musharraf would lose his utility to the US," says Sherry Rehman, an opposition member of parliament. And now it seems that al-Qaeda is declaring war on Pakistan, with last week's attempted assassination - a suicide bombing - of the prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz. A group claiming to be affiliated to al-Qaeda said it had carried it out. Are the hunted becoming the hunters? Musharraf has accused al-Qaeda of being behind two of the recent assassination attempts on him, and Zawahiri called for his killing in his own recent tape recording. And all the while the world's most wanted man remains hidden. The only thing for sure is that if he has been killed or captured, we'll hear of it well in time for America's November elections. But don't bet on it yet. - Foreign Service
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