UK: Osama Bin Laden may be in city not cave says Pakistan's ex-spy chief

Osama bin Laden is probably hiding more easily in a Pakistani city rather than the widely held belief that he is holed-up in a remote cave says Pakistan's ex-spy chief. Osama bin Laden could hide more easily in a city than a remote tribal region, a former Pakistani intelligence chief said on Tuesday (October 9), challenging the notion that the al Qaeda leader is probably holed up in a mountain cave. Lieutenant-General Asad Durrani, former head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), said news of outsiders' presence travels fast in the tribal areas and it would be hard to keep it secret for years. "In the countryside or in tribal areas for that matter, which is an exaggerated form of countryside, it's difficult to hide yourself because there, people live in a manner and operate in a manner in which finding out about an unusual presence is very important," Durrani told Reuters in an interview in London. He said it was true that tribal customs placed great value on showing hospitality and not betraying a guest, "In the tribal code anyone who seeks your protection has to be defended, if necessary with your life," he said. However, he added: "I am not sure over a period of four, five or six years that it would be possible even for the tribesmen to keep his presence under wraps." Such information would have travelled or been divulged, given the incentives, Durrani said in a reference to the 25 million U.S. dollar bounty on bin Laden's head. "My conclusion therefore is it's extremely unlikely that he is around that place." In the six years since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Western intelligence officials have frequently said they suspect he is hiding somewhere in the inaccessible mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. "This is a man on the run in a cave who is virtually impotent other than his ability to get these messages out," White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend said last month when bin Laden issued his first new video for nearly three years. Durrani said an urban centre could provide a better refuge. Other top al Qaeda figures associated with the Sept. 11 attacks have been captured in Pakistani cities -- alleged plotter Ramzi Binalshibh in Karachi in September 2002 and self-confessed plan mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi in March 2003. Pakistan has seen an upsurge in violence since July, when militants scrapped a peace deal with authorities in the tribal region of North Waziristan and army commandos stormed a radical mosque in the capital, Islamabad. U.S. intelligence officials fear al Qaeda is using the tribal areas as a safe haven in which to rebuild its strength. Durrani also said he was concerned that next week's expected court ruling on the whether President Pervez Musharraf is eligible for re-election and the return of exiled opposition leader Benazir Bhutto could provide a focus for further attacks. "I also can understand Miss Bhutto having said so many things that were not popular amongst large factions of Pakistani society, and I can imagine now with these people that she would have to take extra ordinary security measures" Durrani said, "for a political leader it becomes so difficult to operate if you cannot move around and meet your people and meet your constituents," he added.

ITN Source | October 10, 2007

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