Posted on 11/17/2002 10:51:05 AM PST by Nachum
British special forces are searching for Osama bin Laden in Yemen after new intelligence has surfaced revealing that the al-Qa'eda leader fled Afghanistan last year and is being protected by tribesmen in his ancestral homeland.
The Telegraph has learnt that the focus of the world's biggest manhunt has dramatically shifted over the past few weeks from Afghanistan and Pakistan's border areas to the lawless tribal region of Hadhra Maug in south-east Yemen, where bin Laden's father was born.
American officials said on Friday that they had captured a high ranking al-Qa'eda official in the region whom they would not name but described as "among the top dozen", suggesting that the noose might be tightening around the al-Qa'eda leader. Six other al-Qa'eda members were killed in a rocket attack by an unmanned Predator drone two weeks ago.
The Foreign Office on Friday recommended that all British nationals should leave Yemen for fears of reprisal attacks and warned against travel there.
They also said that intelligence services were picking up increased "chatter" from the region similar to that picked up in the run-up to September 11.
The revelation that the world's most wanted man is thought to be in Yemen comes in the wake of the taped message of Osama bin Laden broadcast on al-Jazeera last Tuesday and authenticated by language experts showing that he is still alive, although probably in ill-health.
Evidence that he had not died during the sustained US bombings of the Tora Bora caves last December came as little surprise to intelligence agents involved in the search, who now believe that he may never have been at Tora Bora.
Instead it is thought that he fled Afghanistan last November travelling along opium traffickers' routes through eastern Iran then down through the desert of Baluchistan in Pakistan to the port of Gwador, an area mostly off-limits to foreigners.
He is then thought to have travelled by traditional dhow across the Arabian Sea to Oman and on to Yemen and the protection of the tribesmen of the Hadhra Maug, who are fiercely loyal to his family and have long waged war with the government in Sana'a.
An American official admitted to The Telegraph, "we left too many windows. We could not seal the border with Pakistan and we failed to monitor shipping particularly in those early days".
The new evidence came to light among thousands of documents captured by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, during raids on buildings used by Hamas, the Islamic militants, and Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah, on the West Bank, in late March.
The weight that the US Defence Department has attached to this information along with other similar reports was made clear when they recently shifted several of their Predator drones to Djibouti to spy on Yemen.
Yemen was already one of the countries where al-Qa'eda was thought to be regrouping most actively. The country -
just as Afghanistan was when bin Laden made it his base - is a largely lawless place where the government exerts little control, and is thus perfect territory for bin Laden's men.
The blowing up of the French oil tanker Limberg off the Yemen coast in October was confirmed as an al-Qa'eda attack.
The tribesmen of the Hadhra Maug are said to be fiercely loyal to the bin Laden clan as well as extremely hostile to Westerners, and some members were involved in the bombing of the American warship USS Cole in Aden harbour two years ago, in which 17 sailors died.
To deepen the ties, al-Qa'eda members have been marrying local tribesmen's daughters just as they did in Afghanistan.
A US military official said that the SAS was taking a lead role in the search because of its past expertise in the region.
The SAS carried out a series of operations between 1964 and 1967 when Aden was still a British protectorate, forming so-called Keeni Meeni units under the command of then Major Peter de la Billiere.
They were disguised as locals and named after the Swahili expression for snakes that move silently through the grass.
Wonder how much connection there really is between Yasser and Bin Ladin....
&^%$#%$#!!!
Only problem is, those tribes on the Saudi side ain't real fond of the Saudi's. Ditto those tribes on the Yemeni side, who may not like either Saudi's or Yemeni's depending upon how much they got paid last week.
OBL has just as good a shot of buying loyalty as anyone else. Maybe more, being "blood" and all. Ah, did I mention these jokers are armed to the teeth?
Best of British luck to the SAS!
Deployments of units like SAS, SBS, Delta Force, JTF2 are not supposed to be discussed. When press confirmation is sought on leaks, it should be met with stonewalling, whether the leak is true or false.
Canada even denied the very existence of JTF2 for years, until one of our Defence Ministers wanted to get credit for sending it to Afghanistan.
A point worth repeating.
Who or what is JTF2?
Seriously, so did I, wearing their shoes from the SanAntonio Shoe Company.. SAS..
I may as well tell you before someone else does.. ;)
Not to mention all the evidence of Euroscum duplicity in providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
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