Bin Laden lays low, protected in Pakistan

Rowan Scarborough
Examiner.com
Monday June 18, 2007

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has surrounded himself in a protective network of Islamic supporters in the vast tribal areas of western Pakistan, complicating the hunt for America's most wanted criminal, U.S. intelligence officials say.

The United States has firm evidence bin Laden is alive based on interrogations of captured al Qaeda members and intercepted communications in which known terrorists talk about him, a military intelligence source told The Examiner.

"We get a lot of chatter one or two levels of management below bin Laden that refers to him as 'the Sheik,' 'the esteemed leader,'" said the source, who asked not to be named because he is discussing sensitive intelligence. "We believe him to be alive based on some of the people we have captured who have said that."

The source said the United States has picked up no credible information that bin Laden is dead.

The CIA late last year captured Abd Hadi al-Iraqi, believed to be one of the closest al Qaeda operatives to bin Laden. The United States interrogated al-Iraqi for several months before sending him to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Over five years ago, bin Laden crossed the border from Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountain region to find refuge among like-minded tribal leaders in Pakistan.

Bin Laden's voice has not been picked up in any communication intercept since he was heard by the United States on a short-range radio in Tora Bora.

"He is someone who is very concerned about his personal safety and security and takes measures to insure his profile is low," said a U.S. intelligence official. "This is not to mention his physical location, which makes attempts to locate an individual difficult. The fact is he has a support network, people who sympathize with him."

The CIA in 2005 closed Alec Station, the office in Northern Virginia dedicated to tracking bin Laden. It was part of a reorganization of the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center, which has field offices, including one in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

"The work of Alec Station never stopped or diminished, rather it transitioned to other organizational elements within CTC," a former CIA officer told The Examiner.

P.J. Crowley, a military analyst at the Center for American Progress and a former national security aide to President Clinton, said the Iraq war has diverted assets that could be used to find bin Laden.

"Now that he is in the tribal areas, I doubt that a bounty of any number will be helpful," Crowley said "Given tribal relationships, they will protect him."