Posted on 12/29/2005 11:01:58 AM PST by billorites
Bin Laden has not been heard of since a December 27, 2004 audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, as Al Qaeda’s leader in the war-torn country
HE has not issued any public statement all year. Speculation has grown over his influence, health and even possible death. Where is the Western world’s most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden?
The Al Qaeda leader’s period of silence is the longest since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, offering no clues to the whereabouts or fate of a man who this year appears to have quietly slipped off the radar.
Bin Laden has not been heard of since a December 27, 2004 audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, as Al Qaeda’s leader in the war-torn country.
Just before, on December 16, 2004, a video surfaced where he also called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders they risked a popular uprising.
Since then - silence. Regular interventions by Al Qaeda’s number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, seen as the ideological brains of the network, has only served to feed feverish speculation on what has happened to bin Laden. Zawahiri claimed in an videotape released in September that bin Laden was still alive and leading “jihad” or holy war against the West.
“Al Qaeda for holy war is still, thanks to God, a base for jihad. Its prince Osama Bin Laden, may God protect him, still leads the jihad,” said Zawahiri.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said recently he did not know whether Bin Laden was dead or alive, adding that he would not like to speculate over his fate.
The commander of US troops in Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry, has insisted that bin Laden was still considered alive, and that US forces continue their hunt for him. Seemingly more candid was CIA director Porter Goss, who recently told ABC news channel that Bin Laden’s hideout was known and implied that the CIA knew more than it could reveal.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, this week said he doubted that bin Laden was now capable of supervising the global operations of the militant organisation.
The total eclipse of bin Laden also gave rise to various speculation on Islamist websites, with some admirers of the terror chief already contemplating that he might be dead. “Bin Laden, tracked by the intelligence services who are on his heels, is hiding somewhere along the mountain frontiers between Pakistan and Afghanistan,” opined one blogger. Another claimed that “Abu Abdullah (bin Laden) has deliberately decided to stop all communications to avoid being located by gigantic US surveillance devices”. “O my beloved. I know that you are mortal. No body can oppose the will of God. But the thought of seeing you taken captive fills me with fear,” said another in a “letter of affection” addressed online to Bin Laden, following a rumour claiming that Al Qaeda chief had perished in the October 8 earthquake which ravaged Pakistan. But the editor of the Islamabad-based “Mediawatch”, Yaqoub McLintock, who is also an expert on Al Qaeda, appeared confident as to Bin Laden’s safety. “I think he is alive and well. Admittedly, Bin Laden is not in great health, but he is not at the point of death. All that we hear about his fate is nothing but media speculation. His death would certainly be announced by Al Qaeda, in conformity with Sharia (Islamic law),” he told AFP.
He also claimed that bin Laden avoids making any appearance “as a safety measure, knowing that he is being traced by intelligence services.” Abdul Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, agreed. “Bin Laden has said it all and has nothing to add,” he said.
“The man could well be preparing a large-scale operation in the United States,” added Atwan, the first Arab journalist to interview bin Laden, who has a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head. “Dead or not? This is not the question,” said Yasser Sirri, the director of the London-based Islamic Observatory. “Admittedly, Bin Laden is a strategic symbol, but Al Qaeda is now a decentralised multi-national jihadist (movement) capable of generating thousands of bin Laden,” he said.
He just can't quit us!
Osama - he be dead
Dang it. You beat me to it. Except I was going to write "spring it on the public before impeachment hearings."
SHEEHAN: "O my beloved. I know that you are mortal. No body can oppose the will of God. But the thought of seeing you taken captive fills me with fear"
REID:"Abu Abdullah (bin Laden) has deliberately decided to stop all communications to avoid being located by gigantic US surveillance devices"
- said in a "letter of affection" addressed online to Bin Laden
We didn't catch Hitler or Musallini either.......
Osama is pushing up poppies.
Right!
Who'se *that* supposed to be?...Cindy Sheehan? :o)
Why speak when you have nothing to boast about?
Lefties refuse to admit it, but the war on terror has been quite effective.
We won't hear from this coward as long as he is on the run and his organization flounders.
'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This terrorist is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e
rests in peace! If you hadn't splattered 'm in Tora Bora 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the
bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-Terrorist!!
Our esteemed former Sec State Maddie Half-Bright said just that in the run-up to the 2004 election. Think she'll reprise it in the mid-terms?
It's an absolutely idiotic and irresponsible thing to say . . . so she probably will.
FYI
We didn't catch Hitler or Musallini either.......
The whereabouts of Mussolini (and his mistress) after the war were well-known:
We all accept he is a deadman.
The real question remains.
When is Karl Rove going to open his secret deep freezer and DEFROST?
November 2006
November 2008.
I know, the Italian people did them in...........
He's not dead.
Maybe he discovered "beano".
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