Osama Questions

I have been in receipt of some mail with reference to my article TheHunt For Bin Laden, asking for my assessment of the reported US information about his being present in thePashtun majority areas of Balochistan. One of the readers of the article in the US, who evidently doubts theveracity of the US information, had raised certain pertinent questions. I am giving below the text of my replysent to him as this might be of general interest to the readers.

Text of the reply

Till August 2002, my sources in the madrasas of Pakistan  were saying  that Osama bin Laden was undergoing medical treatment in the Binori madrasa of Karachi for a shrapnel injury. Thereafter, therewere no more HUMINT reports about him. Some of my American friends questioned the veracity of thisinformation. They pointed out , with some validity, that bin Laden had always been surrounded by more than adozen-strong Arab bodyguards, who would not remain unnoticed in a big city like Karachi.

I am still not hundred  per cent certain in my mind that he is alive. That is why, I generally add aconditional "presuming he is still alive". At the same time, one tape of bin Laden disseminated justbefore the US invasion of Iraq last year  in which he had appealed to the Iraqis to emulate the modusoperandi followed by Al Qaeda during the Tora Bora fighting appeared to me to be genuine. The language usedand the kind of details given could have come only from him. From this, I conclude that the evidence of hisbeing alive is greater than evidence otherwise.

A few weeks ago, there were again reports of his being back in the Binori madrasa of Karachi, but thesehave remained unconfirmed.

As I had mentioned in my previous  articles, many other  tapes of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri,including the one of Al-Zawahiri, in which specific threats had been held out against Musharraf, are stronglysuspected to have been faked by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on the orders of Musharraf inorder to convey a message to the Americans that they better not exercise too much pressure on him for actingagainst the dregs of Al Qaeda.

As I keep pointing out in my articles and in my interventions during seminars, all the important arrests ofAl Qaeda leaders till now were made in the big cities of Pakistan -- Abu Zubaida in Faislabad, RamziBinalshibh and Waleed bin Attash in Karachi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in Rawalpindi. There has not been asingle major arrest in the tribal areas.

My tribal contacts tell me that the Americans are being misled by the ISI into believing that bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri are in the tribal areas, but they assert that the tribal areas are the unsafest place for him. TheAmerican troops are just across the border. If they get precise information of his presence, they are notgoing to worry about any diplomatic niceties and await prior permission from President Bush or DefenceSecretary Donald Rumsfeld or Secretary of State Colin Powell before crossing over into Pakistani territory andcatching him. They will enter Pakistan and catch him and a grateful Bush would approve their action ex-postfacto

However, other sources, which are  in the Pakistan Government, assert that Musharraf is really seriousabout wanting to catch bin Laden this time in order to soften US anxiety about his reliability as an ally andabout his control over his Army and scientific establishment following the Nucleargate. They claim that eventhough the Americans have been backing him openly and issuing to him one certificate of good conduct afteranother, in their heart of hearts, they have started asking questions about the wisdom of their uncriticalbacking for him. Musharraf, it is said, feels that only a spectacular success like the arrest or eliminationof bin Laden and/or Al-Zawahiri would remove the growing suspicions about him in the US.

Even if he is keen to play the game this time, will his officers, many of whom are anti-US, go along andhelp in the capture or elimination of bin Laden? It is a very difficult question to answer.

One thing I am certain in my mind: Musharraf and his Director-General of the ISI, Lt.Gen.Ehsanul Haq, aretwo persons who know for certain whether bin Laden is alive and, if so, where, and should be able to help theUS get him, if they want to.

It is difficult to give categorical answers to your questions. Your guess about bin Laden is as good or asbad as mine. Only Allah, Musharraf and Ehsanul Haq will have categorical answers.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer ResearchFoundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.