9/11 + 7: Taking stockRethinking strategy for finding bin Laden
The effort to bring Osama bin Laden to justice has so far failed; there are many reasons for that: Half-hearted efforts by the Pakistani authorities; failure to win the hearts and minds of tribal leaders in Pakistan’s Northwest Territories; limits Pakistan imposed on direct U.S. action inside Pakistan; the invasion of Iraq, which consumed vast resources which otherwise would have been invested in the effort against al-Qaeda; and more; U.S., Pakistan, are now rethinking the strategy
The U.S. strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden has not worked. Some point out that it has not worked from the very beginning, with the flawed planning and execution of of the attack on the Tora Bora mountains towrad the end of the Afghanistan war. The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock writes that frustrated by repeated dead ends in the search for bin Laden, U.S. and Pakistani officials said they are questioning long-held assumptions about their strategy and are shifting tactics to intensify the use of the unmanned but lethal Predator drone spy plane in the mountains of western Pakistan (see 28 March 2008 HS Daily Wire story).
The number of Hellfire missile attacks by Predators in Pakistan has more than tripled, with eleven strikes reported by Pakistani officials this year, compared with three in 2007. The attacks are part of a renewed effort to cripple al-Qaeda’s central command that began early last year and has picked up speed as President Bush’s term in office winds down, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials involved in the operations. There has been no confirmed trace of bin Laden since he narrowly escaped from the CIA and the .S. military after the battle near Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001, according to U.S., Pakistani, and European officials. They said they are now concentrating on a short list of other al-Qaeda leaders who have been sighted more recently, in hopes that their footprints could lead to bin Laden.
The officials attributed their failure to find bin Laden to an overreliance on military force, disruptions posed by the war in Iraq, and a pattern of underestimating the enemy. Whitlock writes that these officials say that, above all, the search has been hampered by an inability to develop informants in Pakistan’s isolated tribal regions, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding.
With CIA officers and U.S. Special Forces prevented from operating freely in Pakistan (although this is now changing; see 4 September 2008 HS Daily Wire analysis), the search for bin Laden and his lieutenants is taking place mostly from the air. The Predators, equipped with multiple cameras that transmit live video via satellite, have launched their Hellfire missiles against four targets in the past month alone. Since January, the reconnaissance drones have killed two senior al-Qaeda leaders with $5 million bounties on their heads.
Still, debate persists among both U.S. and Pakistani officials over the merits of this aggressive approach, which has resulted in higher civilian casualties and strained diplomatic relations. “Making more effort and flailing are different things,” said a senior Pakistani security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid alienating U.S. authorities.
