|
Why Hunting Bin Laden is an Extraordinary Operation
By Wagdy A. Sawahel 03/12/2001
Although scientific reports of bin Laden's whereabouts have placed him in different parts of Afghanistan, nobody - not even the Taliban
- seems to know where he will spend the night. U.S. officials have even stated that searching for him is like looking for "a needle in a haystack". This is because the most likely hiding places of Bin Laden are bombproof caves that even the most sophisticated satellite cannot detect.
Although the Taliban are losing ground - and some say about to fall - the United States has not yet managed to track down Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The Taliban say he is safe and well - insisting that they will never hand him over - and that he will never let himself be captured alive.
The United States is stepping up its effort to hunt down bin Laden and his al-Qa'eda network. But where exactly is bin Laden, who is believed to be always on the move - from cave to cave? And is he even still in Afghanistan?
Using geographical, geological and climatologic analysis, scientific reports of bin Laden's whereabouts have placed him in different parts of the country. Reports state that he could be anywhere from the North Eastern area, near Jalalabad, to the South Western Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, or even in South Eastern Afghanistan. In fact, the last confirmed sighting of bin Laden situates him somewhere near the city of Jalalabad, east of the capital, where he is said to have a complex of training camps. Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who interviewed bin Laden recently, says he was wrapped in a blanket and driven in a jeep with covered windows for five hours from Kabul, traveling over hilly roads. That could place him about 75 kilometers from the capital. The colder temperature and the sound of anti-aircraft fire suggest he was driven north. However, London's
Sunday Times newspaper said U.S. and British forces had narrowed the search for bin Laden down to 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) of rugged terrain in South Eastern Afghanistan.
Iranian radio had said that bin Laden was holed up in the mountains in the south of the country - the Filkoh hills between Urozan, Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
Geologists differ with all accounts and say the rocks of the cave seen in a video released by bin Laden - after the first U.S. bombs fell on Afghanistan on October 7 - was typical of the sedimentary rock of the city of Khost in Paktia province about 130 miles (210 kilometers) south of the Afghan capital. This rock comes from the Katawaz basin, which features hundreds of valleys and ridges, and the rock's natural weakness makes it vulnerable to bombing.
However, nobody - not even the Taliban - really know the whereabouts of bin Laden, even though the regional media are full of reports on his movements.
Furthermore, the U.S. fears that as they close their net around bin Laden, he could try to flee Afghanistan. Reports have placed him in the Russian republic of Chechnya, the Philippine island of Mindanao and the Indonesian island of Lombok. Others have suggested he might try to move to Somalia, Sudan, Iraq or even neighboring Kashmir or Pakistan - where support for him is especially high in the tribal areas across the border, where the Pakistani government has little real authority - or to Hadramuth in Yemen because it has no legal umbrella and is where his family originated from.
Past attempts to find other terrorist leaders have not been very encouraging. In 1993, U.S. troops were deployed to assist the United Nation efforts to bring peace in Somalia. Their assignment included the capture of warlord Mohammed Aidid. They seized a number of his lieutenants, but on October 3, militants in the streets of Magadishu succeeded in shooting down two Black Hawk helicopters and killing a number of U.S. troops. Bodies of dead solders were dragged through the streets, and when footage of those scenes was broadcast on U.S. television, the Clinton Administration's will to keep troops in East Africa was broken. "we had a lot of people on the ground in Magadishu. We controlled the skies. We had a number of American troops, including military intelligence people. We never did actually find him and that was in one city," James Woolsey, former CIA director, said.
In reality, it is very hard to distinguish between individual people, even using the most sophisticated spy equipment available. In Tom Clancy's bestseller
Patriot Games - filmed with Harrison Ford as CIA analyst Jack Ryan - the American intelligence agency has access to remarkably high-resolution satellite images of a terrorist training camp - detailed enough to be able to identify individuals. Later, heat-sensitive imaging allows the directors of a Special Forces operation to watch a night raid on a camp from their control room thousands of miles away. However, the reality is rather different. Western intelligence agencies
do have access to satellite photos capable of resolving objects well under a meter in size. Different spectral bands, such as the infrared, can be used to tease out details even through camouflage. But, nevertheless, it would be impossible to distinguish one individual from another at such a distance.
If a target could be identified, satellite-derived data could be used to generate realistic "virtual reality" simulations for the training of personnel, such as tank crews, pilots, and Special Forces. It could allow them to practice an attack, familiarizing any likely problems before they have to deal with it in reality. But one would still have to know where to look - and even the most sophisticated satellite is not going to find a man in a hole in a mountainside.
It has been said that the notorious Afghan winter, contrary to popular notion, is going to be beneficial to the U.S. Air Force, as it will be easy to trace the whereabouts of those holed up using thermal sensors. But in order to do that, a lot of currently missing data is needed.
Intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts always comes too late, as he is moving constantly and even his own people never know where he will spend the night. In addition, he uses a variety of vehicles to move from place to place, including mules and horses. He is said not to use a telephone or to have any electrical equipment near him - for fear of hidden bombs or of electric signals giving away his whereabouts. These signals are necessary if intelligence satellites, which are designed to intercept radio and mobile phone traffic, are to find him. The satellites, therefore, have been "re-tasked" in the hunt for him.
The expected places that bin Laden might be in are very well protected. These places are reportedly guarded by anti-aircraft guns. The mountains - which cover about two-thirds of the country - have many caves and bunkers with remote and hidden entrances where hundreds of people can hide. The tunnels, which are thousands of meters long and can be more than two stories high, are located inside the mountains. They were built by Afghan fighters during the war against the Soviets. They are so deep that they were impervious to intense bombing by Soviet forces. Bin Laden later expanded these caves, reinforcing the interiors with concrete and sealing them with steel doors. Bin Laden and his followers have also used a network of caves in the mountains of the Oruzgan province, north of Kandahar, to hide in the past.
The Khost area boasts deep underground bunkers, big enough to hide tanks and other weapons, which were built during the war against the Soviets. Bin Laden has a camp there that was hit by U.S. cruise missiles in 1998; but it was not destroyed.
In the first interview with a member of bin Laden's family since the September 11 atrocities on America, 18-year-old Abdullah Laden (one of Osama bin Laden's sons) said to the British paper, the
Sunday Mirror, on October 14, that his father was still in Afghanistan hiding in the mountains with 60 trucks full of satellite equipment and 300 commandos to protect him from the U.S.-led operation.
Sources:
BBC. "Papers Focus On Hunt For Bin
Laden."
Knight, Celia. "America is searching for Bin Laden." The Daily Express. November 17th, 2001.
Knight, Will. "Satellites Scan Entire Afghan Territory Every Week." New
Scientist. October 4,2001.
Ratuesar, Ramesh. "The Hunt For Osama Bin Laden." Time. Nov.18, 2001.
Saba, Daud. "Geography Of
Afghanistan."
Tewari, Parakash. "Hunting Bin Laden by Thermal Sensors." Times of India, November 17, 2001.
|
