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Search Narrows - U.S., Pakistani Officials Center Hunt for Bin Laden on Caravan
ABC News ^ | March 7 | Staff and news service reports

Posted on 03/07/2003 9:49:27 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

Osama bin Laden
U.S. officials believe they are closing in on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, seen here in an April 1998 file photo. (AP Photo)
Search Narrows
U.S., Pakistani Officials Center Hunt for Bin Laden on Caravan
ABCNEWS.com

March 7 — U.S. and Pakistani officials have narrowed their search for Osama bin Laden to a caravan near the border of southwestern Pakistan, ABCNEWS has learned.


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The CIA and Pakistani Army are electronically tracking the large caravan of people on foot and horseback through the rugged mountain area of Pakistan between the borders with Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistani officials told ABCNEWS.

Osama bin Laden may be traveling with the caravan and may be on foot.

Officials have cast a net around the caravan — using electronic U.S. surveillance and planes with cameras that can see through darkness to monitor its movement along a trail.

U.S. officials say they are not 100 percent sure that bin Laden is in the caravan, but they have a high degree of probability that he is and have closed off the area to all other traffic.

The area is so rugged that officials may not be able to move in with military vehicles, but instead could launch an operation with CIA paramilitary forces attacking the caravan from helicopters if it is determined that bin Laden is there.

President Bush has also authorized the launch of a missile attack if bin Laden is positively identified.

Bin Laden's son Saad was recently in the Iranian capital, Tehran, European anti-terrorism officials told ABCNEWS, and it was a cell phone call to him that turned authorities onto bin Laden's trail

"His son, apparently Saad, is in Iran and some of his wives also are in Iran and he has made apparently a big mistake," said ABCNEWS terrorism consultant Vince Cannistraro.

Though bin Laden's voice patterns were identified in the intercepted cell phone conversation, U.S. officials are aware that the call could have been a decoy to try to get bin Laden's pursuers off the trail.

When it was believed that bin Laden was cornered in Tora Bora in Afghanistan, the al Qaeda kingpin gave a cell phone and a tape recording of his voice to a group that headed out of the region in one direction, while the terror chief snuck out in another.

Either way, U.S. officials say they want to get bin Laden on the run, because as long as he remains holed up in one location he is more difficult to find than when he is traveling.

Information From Terror Lieutenant

The hunt for the Saudi-born terrorist mastermind reached a fever pitch late Thursday, with the launch of major military operations in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, with teams of CIA agents directly involved in the hunt for America's most-wanted terrorist.

That search centered on two areas in Baluchistan. One near the northern city of Chaman, near the Afghan border, where planes dropped leaflets on Thursday reminding people of the $25 million reward for bin Laden.

The sudden optimism that the world's most-wanted terrorist may soon be captured, officials say, was sparked by information obtained following the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a top-ranking al Qaeda leader, in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi over the weekend.

Mohammed is believed to be the third-ranking al Qaeda leader and the chief operations planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Officials say a number of documents were seized from the Rawalpindi house where he was arrested along with Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the alleged financier of the attacks on America.

There have been widespread reports that the interrogation of Mohammed, who is believed to be at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, would lead to the capture of the al Qaeda leader.

Unconfirmed Sightings

There have been numerous unconfirmed reports of bin Laden sightings in the area on both sides of the Pakistani-Iranian border.

The Pakistani province of Baluchistan borders Iran and Afghanistan. (Maps.com/ABCNEWS.com)
"They definitely have him pinned down to a small area. This will be a major operation," Cannistraro said.

Mohammed also reportedly told his interrogators that he had met bin Laden within the last month.

Authorities believe information from Mohammed's cell phones dovetails with other information they already had, which leads them to believe they have a very good lead on bin Laden's whereabouts.

Earlier this week, Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said several weapons, computer discs and papers were seized during Mohammed's arrest. But he cast doubts on reports that Mohammed had met bin Laden in recent weeks.

Ahmed did not, however, deny that Mohammed and bin Laden had been in contact with each other in recent weeks.

"Nowadays to have a meeting, you do not need to be present personally," he said. "This meeting can take place via computer, and there are many ways of meeting."

There were also reports in the Pakistani press that some of the documents seized during Mohammed's arrest were letters written in Arabic, including handwritten notes by bin Laden.

Whether or not bin Laden actually can be brought in and tried remains an open question. U.S. officials who have interrogated al Qaeda prisoners say bin Laden would not want to be taken alive.

"I always had this dream of seeing him in an orange prisoners' jump suit that said 'Metropolitan Correctional Center' [in New York City], but I think he will want to shoot it out because he has scripted his own demise," said Jack Cloonan, an FBI bin Laden investigator until he retired recently. "He wants to be a martyr."


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: binladen; warlist
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1 posted on 03/07/2003 9:49:27 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: *war_list; W.O.T.; 11th_VA; Libertarianize the GOP; Free the USA; knak; MadIvan; PhiKapMom; ...
OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST
2 posted on 03/07/2003 9:51:04 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Nuke Saddam and his Baby Milk Factories!!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I may be dense, but if you have him "pinned down" to an area where you can figure out it's a CARAVAN, why can't you lob a few cruise missiles in and take these guys OUT?
3 posted on 03/07/2003 9:52:45 AM PST by LS
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To: All
Earlier thread on the Sons:

AP: Sons of Osama bin Laden Arrested in S.E. Afghanistan???

4 posted on 03/07/2003 9:52:49 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Nuke Saddam and his Baby Milk Factories!!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
WOW! If this is true I'm gonna jump for joy!
5 posted on 03/07/2003 9:52:58 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (Liberate Iraq! Lets Roll!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
the solution to this quandry is as simple to execute as it is to state: thermonuclear device.

or, if we insist on having a body, multiple high-energy neutron gadgets.

dep

6 posted on 03/07/2003 9:53:34 AM PST by dep
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Probably just his funeral processions after they got a garbage can of his bits and pieces from that cave in Tora Bora where he assumed Cave Temp in December 2001.

Regardless, just kill all of them and send them to hell!
7 posted on 03/07/2003 9:53:37 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Stamp out Freepathons! Stop being a Freep Loader! Become a monthly donor!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I just love our new Office of Strategic Information!
8 posted on 03/07/2003 9:53:44 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer (Let's Roll)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Caravan, I thought he was in a Land Cruiser.
9 posted on 03/07/2003 9:53:56 AM PST by gov_bean_ counter
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
We may have cornered the b*stard!!

Send a Predator Drone filled with knockout Gas pronto..

10 posted on 03/07/2003 9:54:23 AM PST by ewing
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To: ConservativeMan55
the u.s. government has denied it.

dep

11 posted on 03/07/2003 9:55:21 AM PST by dep
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To: dep
A good time to test a couple of those MOADs.
12 posted on 03/07/2003 9:56:00 AM PST by Semper Paratus
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To: ewing
I assume that ABC released this updated info so Jenning's friend Binny would know and could do more to avoid capture or certain death....Nice going ABC!
13 posted on 03/07/2003 9:56:25 AM PST by never4get
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To: dep
They only denied his sons were captured, not that Bin Laden has been cornered.
14 posted on 03/07/2003 9:56:58 AM PST by ConservativeMan55 (Liberate Iraq! Lets Roll!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Caravan Smharavan


15 posted on 03/07/2003 9:57:33 AM PST by finnman69 (!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
FR was made for situations such as this...we will probably know when OBL is caught 15 minutes before the networks
16 posted on 03/07/2003 9:57:42 AM PST by ewing
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To: Grampa Dave
when they take bin laden alive, it is going to be hilarious to watch some of the people around here who have sworn up and down her was dead. it's gonna be like the dead parrot sketch, in reverse.

"he's not restin', he's dead. he's not pinin' for the fjords."

dep

17 posted on 03/07/2003 9:58:35 AM PST by dep
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
"...President Bush has also authorized the launch of a missile attack if bin Laden is positively identified...."

Man, that's gonna leave a mark.

Couldn't his execution be sort of, slow and agonizing?
18 posted on 03/07/2003 9:58:46 AM PST by Chummy
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To: LS
Because it's just more poetic frilly talk coming from excitable know nothing Asia Minor types. They are BS artists non-parallel.
19 posted on 03/07/2003 10:00:01 AM PST by kinghorse
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To: Semper Paratus
Isn't that MOAB (mother of all bombs)?
20 posted on 03/07/2003 10:01:46 AM PST by momofsixgirls
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