Great White Father in Washington Sends Predators to Nail Voldemort after Dementors Fail

Seven years after 9/11, the American military and intelligence have failed to locate or kill Osama bin Ladin, supreme leader of Al Qaeda and the mastermind behind the devastating Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks, or his deputy Ayman Zawahiri. According to an article by Craig Whitlock in the Washington Post of September 10, this lack of success has forced the USA to intensify the use of unmanned Predator spy planes that carry powerful cameras and Hellfire missiles. Cross border raids into Pakistan’s tribal territories, which have already begun, are also high on the agenda.

Osama had a narrow escape from the CIA and the US military after the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001. Since that time, nobody has been able to find any trace of him. The Americans are convinced that Al Qaeda is planning more devastating strikes against the West. Hence the urgent need to find him.

Pakistan used to be a hospitable place for mujahedin freedom fighters during the Afghanistan Jihad against Soviet military forces during the 1980s. Many Arab and Central Asian fighters flocked to Pakistan but after the war ended they remained here and refused to go back to their own countries, either owing to fear of persecution or lack of employment prospects. Contrary to expectations in Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, Osama was able to direct attacks against US targets from Afghanistan, culminating in the devastating attack of September 11, 2001.

Washington Post attributes failure to find Osama to American overreliance on military force, diversion of resources to Iraq, and underestimating the enemy. The search has also been handicapped by an inability to develop informants in Pakistan's tribal regions, where Osama and Zawahiri are believed to be hiding.

As CIA officers in US Special Forces have been unable to operate freely in Pakistan, the search for Osama and his cohorts is taking place from the air, through remote control. According to the Washington Post, Predator drones have been used against four targets in the past month alone. Since January, the drones have killed two senior Al Qaeda leaders with $5 million bounties on their head.

For 10 years Osama has eluded his US pursuers by relying on a cloak of invisibility. After his close shave in December 2001, Osama is believed to rely on disguises and uses human messengers instead of electronic communications. Probably, he does not exercise the day-to-day tactical control over his adherents but gives them policy guidelines. The sympathy he has aroused among Pashtun tribesman along the border is his Patronus charm against his pursuers. Pashtuns suffered heavy casualties in the bombing campaign of 2001. They resent the recent Predator attacks that are resulting in civilian casualties. As a result, the $25 million reward on Osama’s head has failed to elicit cooperation leading to the capture of the Al Qaeda leader.

US officials are convinced that Osama is hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas without having any solid proof to back their hunch. True, he is familiar with the area for 20 years and knows many people there, but what may appear to be logical to the United States could be the very reason for Osama to hide somewhere else.

The United States often blamed the Musharraf government and the Pakistani ISI for playing a double game and not co-operating fully in the war on terror. If so, it was a very costly double game in which over 1200 Pakistani soldiers have been killed while fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents and thousands of Pakistani citizens have lost their lives in military operations or suicide bomb attacks.

Although perceptions differ in Washington and Islamabad on the best way to prosecute the global war on terror (GWOT), both sides are agreed on the importance of launching programs in the tribal areas to raise the standards of living of the Pashtun people. The United States has allocated large sums of money for the tribal areas and has promised much more but the problem of effective delivery has yet to be solved.

Perhaps the new democratic government in Pakistan will be able to persuade an overwhelming majority of the tribal people, who are not in favor of taking up arms against the government anyway, to shun the terrorists and opt for economic progress as against militancy. If this does not happen, Pakistan and the whole world could be in for more unpleasant surprises.