Drones Buzz Pak Town Eyed As Bin Laden's Hideout

By James Gordon Meek

Since I began writing about Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda in the late 1990s, and particularly after the 9/11 attacks, I've been dogged by a basic question posed by countless friends, colleagues and kin: "Where's Osama and why can't we just kill him?" I've often struggled with a tortured explanation of his suspected hideout in Pakistan's Hindu Kush mountains, which I knew from my mountaineering and trekking experience to surely be one of the most austere places on Earth. Any effort to nail Bin Laden there would be limited by high elevation, harsh terrain and severe weather, not to mention the difficulty of operating in a stealthy manner and raucous Pakistani politics. But it's no worry for Bin Laden, who knows the goat trails well.

But you can't explain the inherent difficulties of finding and killing Bin Laden, as we did in Sunday's New York Daily News, without first establishing that he is suspected by the U.S. of living in the mountainous Chitral region of the Hindu Kush - which we did in a separate story Sunday about the hunt itself.

Last fall, CIA Director Mike Hayden chided top Al Qaeda leaders for living on the run while running the terror network "from an isolated outpost in northwestern Pakistan." The dominant terrain of Pakistan's far corner bordering Afghanistan is the Hindu Kush, home to some of the tallest peaks on the planet. U.S. military officers pointed to that region, known as Chitral, as a possible haven for Bin Laden when I was in Afghanistan in late 2005. In 2006, CNN analyst and Bin Laden expert Peter Bergen cited a senior intelligence source who told him Chitral was a good place to look for the Al Qaeda founder.

Below are links to the two stories that ran in the paper, plus two lengthy blog items with additional reporting and quotes. The Mouth of the Potomac Blog items also include links to some of the source material we drew from, including local press reports - which the Daily News confirmed - about the seven drone sorties spotted over Chitral since August. Missile attacks have never occurred in Chitral, which is 300 miles north of the Waziristan tribal areas where the U.S. has launched 39 strikes and killed eight mid-level Al Qaeda leaders since June.

"If they are in Chitral but aren't shooting right now, they have intel to suggest a bad guy is there and they are trying to build a targeting package," surmised a former U.S. counterterror operative with recent experience hunting Al Qaeda leaders. "It often takes days or weeks to confirm that you have the right guy, and that you can take the shot in a way that minimizes casualties."

Where's Osama? Try Chitral, Pakistan, an ex-trekkers' paradise buzzed by US drones

Why it's so hard to find and kill Al Qaeda's founder in the mountains of Pakistan

Team Obama pledges 'Aggressive effort' to nail Bin Laden

Rising militancy in the Hindu Kush mountains may help him