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Osama bin Laden (Washington Times file photo) |
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The U.S. intelligence community believes Osama bin Laden has a deal with Pakistan that would essentially provide the al Qaeda leader with immunity from capture.
Intelligence sources said the consensus view is that bin Laden agreed to a Pakistani offer for safe haven in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan in return for the terrorist mastermind’s complete silence.
They said bin Laden has become separated from virtually all of the al Qaeda leadership, including Ayman Zawahiri, who continues to publicly address supporters.
"We don't believe the rumors that he died, although that is always a possibility," an intelligence source said. "We believe that he has been assured safe haven if he doesn't attract any attention to himself. As you can see, he's keeping his part of the bargain."
The assessment stemmed from bin Laden's failure to send any messages to al Qaeda supporters in 2005. The sources said all of the messages that related to major developments in the Arab and Islamic world have been broadcast by Zawahiri. The developments included the death of Saudi King Fahd and the recent earthquake that rocked Pakistan and killed many Pashtuns, the traditional supporters of bin Laden.
"We have no reason to believe that in the earthquake—that Osama bin Laden was killed by that," Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, told a briefing on Dec. 8. "Our working assumption is that he is alive today. I will not speculate on his location."
Among the options drafted in a recent U.S. intelligence assessment was that bin Laden died in April 2005 of kidney failure. Another scenario was that he has been incapacitated from lack of medical treatment.
But the assessment favored a third option, which suggested that bin Laden remained in the tribal frontier along the Afghan-Pakistani border. This option asserted that bin Laden was in contact with elements of Pakistani intelligence while being separated from his operational chiefs.
"I think that Osama bin Laden is no longer the operational head of al Qaeda, because he is hiding deep inside the mountains and he doesn't have contact with the al Qaeda people," the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, told a briefing in Islamabad last week.
Over the last few months, the CIA has investigated reports that bin Laden died of multiple organ failure in a Pakistani village in April 2005. The rumors that spread through the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan asserted that bin Laden was buried in an unmarked grave by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been told of bin Laden's death, the rumors said. But he was said to have withheld any announcement to prevent any change in Pakistan's close ties with the United States, a relationship that these days has been largely based on the joint war against al Qaeda.
The rising al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, head of the movement in Iraq. Al Zarqawi has become an object of increasing emulation in South Asia and al Qaeda operatives were said to have been studying Al Zarqawi's methods, particularly the beheading of Westerners as a method of intimidation. | 
