Wednesday, December 06, 2006

U.S.A.-WASHINGTON D.C.: CIA FEARS BIN LADEN & HIS #2 IN SEPARATE SAFE HAVENS

CIA fears Bin Laden is alive in safe haven
IAN BRUCE
December 07 2006


The CIA thinks Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are alive and hiding in separate, "physical safe-haven" locations in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the intelligence agency yesterday discounted growing rumours that bin Laden had succumbed to kidney failure and al-Zawahri had been mortally wounded in a US missile strike earlier this year.

"We have reason to believe both men are still alive and still plotting against the West, although constant surveillance and a manhunt on the ground have greatly restricted their ability to command the network they established," he added.

Robert Gates, the US defence-secretary-designate, has meanwhile announced that he intends to review the tactics in the intensive but unsuccessful, five-year hunt for the world's two most wanted terrorists.

"Bin Laden is more of a symbol than an active commander now. But it's important to keep him on the run," he said.

"While it's important to continue the search for him, the challenge is in figuring out where he's going to be rather than where he's been and getting that intelligence in time to act on it. "

The way we'll catch him eventually, in my opinion, is that, just as in the case of Saddam Hussein, one of his own people will turn him in."

Several special task forces which include British and Australian SAS troopers, the CIA, MI6, and even Norwegian mountain warfare specialists, have been on continuous patrol along the 1200-mile border since al Qaeda was driven from its White Mountains redoubt at Tora Bora in Afghanistan in 2001.

The US State Department is now providing £500m over the next five years to help develop roads and communications on both sides of the frontier region in a bid to "drain the swamp" for terrorist fugitives hiding in the lawless and primitive tribal territories of North and South Waziristan.

Pertinent Links:

1) CIA fears Bin Laden is alive in safe haven

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