DAR AL ISLAM - PAKISTAN: A CAVE SOMEWHERE IN PAKISTAN, UBL CELEBRATES HIS BIRTHDAY

Bin Laden to celebrate 50th birthday

Had things gone as US President George W Bush wanted, Osama bin Laden would have been taken in "dead or alive" five years ago as the Taliban regime collapsed in Afghanistan.

But on Saturday, the world's most wanted terrorist will in all likelihood mark his 50th birthday as a free man.

Despite a massive manhunt since he was believed to have fled to mountains straddling the border with Pakistan in late 2001, not to mention a US bounty of $US25 million ($A32 million) on his head, the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network remains at large, and if the Taliban insurgents' top military commander, Mullah Dadullah, is to be believed, Bin Laden is still alive.
"We know he is still alive. He is not yet martyred," Dadullah said recently in an interview with Britain's Channel 4 television.

There are some indications he might be right. In the event of Bin Laden's death, his cohorts would certainly have proclaimed him a martyr who had evaded capture by his enemies to the bitter end.

And US authorities would scarcely have failed to parade a body or a captured Bin Laden in video footage before placing him on trial as they did with Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

But while there have been no recent video releases to prove the Saudi is still alive, earlier images of Bin Laden are indelibly engrained on the global consciousness: bearded, tall - 196cm by Interpol's calculation - turbaned, often toting a rifle and undeniably mesmeric.

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