"Al-Zawahri and bin Laden are believed to be hiding in the mountains along the Pakistani-Afghanistan border. Pakistani troops are co-operating with the United States in the search for the pair."
Is finding bin Laden so difficult, that it can NOT be done in four years?
I doubt we could have won WWII with this mentality, surely more difficult than finding bin Laden.
Yes -
UBL is most likely North of Peshawar - In the NW Frontier or maybe in Kashmir (an area that is off limits to outsiders and home to numerous Kashmiri militant groups, some of which are deeply intertwined with al-Qaeda.)
Capturing UBL in the NW Frontier is such an extremely difficult task most just can't comprehend. We are talking roughly 40,000 square miles of the most rugged terrain on earth! - Furthermore the Afghan / Pakistan border stretches 1,500 miles—roughly the distance from Washington, D.C., to Denver (just to get a clue).
Throughout the NW Frontier (and South toward Baluchistan) Pashtun tribes are completely in control. A group of warlords who are autonomous from any centralized Gov't - Pakistan troops (Gov't troops) haven't controlled these areas in about for the last 70 years -
Again the terrain in this region of the world is some of the most brutal on earth -Making any sustained operations a complete nightmare. Not to mention having to conduct any of these operations completely in the "black" (for a variety of reasons). And not just because we don't want other Nations to know....but because our operators stick out like a sore thumb in this part of the World.
The fact is Zarqawi continues to remain alive and free in Iraq - Yet there we have over 155,000 U.S. Soldiers, control of 90% + of the Country, the majority support of the people of Iraq who have twice voted for freedom and Intel sources that far out value what we have in the border regions of Pak/Stan -
In Stan we have less then 19,000 U.S. Soldiers, where only a fraction of those are actually near the border regions and even a smaller fraction of those can operate effectively there for sustained periods.
The key to bagging Zarqawi (in Iraq) is to continue to shorten our OODA loop (which we are doing) - The key to UBL in stan is the same (to a lesser degree) but more importantly waiting on that one piece of HUMIT that gives him away - Then put our shooters on that location stat -
yes, it is very difficult. they are not in some identifiable mountain hideaway that has a large security contingent around it that can be spotted from the air, that is attracting attention. they are living in some low-key village somewhere, in one of the most rugged, lawless parts of the planet.
And what "mentality" would you be referring to?