Pakistan Protecting bin Laden
Arnaud de Borchgrave - November 4, 2004
With his latest video sally, Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, has repositioned himself as the only leader willing to confront the world's sole superpower. Bin Laden has been hiding in Pakistan for almost three years, evidently with high-ranking protection. SNIP
Bin Laden now knows that certain countless millions of Muslims, surveyed by the Pew Foundation two years in a row, trust him more than George W. Bush. In Muslim countries with a combined population of 450 million, bin Laden was a clear winner as a "freedom fighter" over the U.S. president. In Morocco and Jordan, two traditionally pro-Western countries, at least at the regime-to-regime level, Mr. Bush was trusted by fewer than 10 percent in either country.
Bin Laden also scored majorities among the 6 million, mostly poverty-stricken, North Africans living in slums on the outskirts of France's major cities. Similar paeans echoed among 1 million South Asians in the greater London region.
Pakistani denials notwithstanding, Osama bin Laden has been in Pakistan since Dec. 9, 2001, when he escaped from the Tora Bora mountain range. Countrywide, bin Laden feels secure with 66 percent of Pakistanis, which moves up to plus 80 percent in the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan, the two provinces bordering Afghanistan and governed by bin Laden admirers who consider Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar a personal friend.
This reporter and a multilingual UPI team, tipped by a major tribal leader about bin Laden's progress as he exited the Tora Bora mountain range through the Tirah Valley, arrived at the location Dec. 11, 2001. Local villagers confirmed that bin Laden, on horseback, accompanied by some 50 fighters, had come out of the Tirah Valley two days before. They were close to a main road that led from Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) to Peshawar, capital of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). Bin Laden left in the direction of Peshawar in an SUV with darkened windows.
Bin Laden could be sheltered in any of Pakistan's major cities. The sprawling port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea, surrounded by miles of slums, has some 15 million people. In Peshawar, a city of 3.5 million, many Pathans, like bin Laden, are over six feet tall. In FATA, rickety local buses display posters of bin Laden captioned "Freedom Fighter." Bin Laden also enjoys the protection of renegade members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).
Conventional wisdom among the al-Qaida watchers in Pakistan says President Pervez Musharraf's regime is reluctant to launch a countrywide crackdown to find bin Laden. If bin Laden were captured, dead or alive, Mr. Musharraf would feel obligated to turn him over to the United States. And Pakistan might then face a disinterested U.S. administration and lose billions in aid.
Three months before the release of the September 11 Commission report, commission chief of staff Phil Zelikow asked a prominent Pakistani if he could "fill in the gaps about what was happening behind the scenes in Pakistan in the period immediately preceding the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington." He traveled the length and breadth of Pakistan working his sources, which included many former ranking government officials, retired senior officers and former ISI personnel.
The requested report arrived in Washington too late to be included in the commission's 567-page report, which mentioned Pakistan 311 times. Even if it had arrived in time, it probably would have been left out. The material turned over to Mr. Zelikow, a former member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001-2003), could prove even more embarrassing to Mr. Musharraf than the information supplied by U.S. intelligence about the international nuclear black market arms bazaar that was run for the benefit of America's enemies (North Korea, Iran and Libya).
The unpublished addendum to the September 11 report said:
(1) Former senior ISI officers knew about the September 11 plot before the attacks occurred.
(2) Osama bin Laden has not left Pakistan since he escaped from Tora Bora.
(3) Bin Laden was treated for renal problems at a military hospital near Peshawar.
Mr. Musharraf will, of course, deny all this. Though he was army chief before his military coup in October 1999 gave him absolute power, Mr. Musharraf told the United States he knew nothing about A.Q. Khan's activities. This stretched credulity to the breaking point. He pardoned Mr. Khan and allowed him to keep his ill-gotten nuclear fortune. Future denials about bin Laden will ring as hollow.
Snipped and excerpted for brevity's sake. Interesting read in it's entirety IMO.
http://www.worldthreats.com/al-qaeda_terrorism/Pakistan%20Hiding%20OBL.htm