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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| A Hostile Land Foils the Quest for bin Laden |
| 2004-12-13 |
| Severely EFL The war in Afghanistan inflicted severe damage on Al Qaeda, forcing it to adapt to survive, intelligence specialists agree. Today, they say it functions largely as a loose network of local franchises linked by a militant Islamist ideology. But Mr. bin Laden remains much more than just an iconic figurehead of Islamic militancy, most American intelligence officials now say. From a presumed hiding place on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistan border, he controls an elite terrorist cell devoted to attacking in the United States, the officials say they suspect. They contend that he personally oversees the group of Qaeda operatives, which he hopes to use for another "spectacular" event, like the Sept. 11 hijacking plot. American counterterrorism analysts say this special Qaeda unit is probably dispersed, though they do not know where. This "external planning group" can communicate with regional affiliates around the world to work with them when needed, one senior intelligence official said. "There is a strong desire by bin Laden to attack the continental United States, and he wants to use the external planning node to do it," the official said. But the United States has failed to penetrate the group and has no idea when or where it will try to strike, the officials acknowledged. Intelligence officials would not provide any details of how they reached their conclusions about Mr. bin Laden's current role, which have not previously been reported. Has Hot Pursuit Cooled? As a result of the restrictions, American military and intelligence personnel in Afghanistan are no longer really hunting for Mr. bin Laden, an intelligence official said. They are trying to provide stability for Afghanistan's new government while battling a local Taliban insurgency and a scattering of Qaeda fighters. On Saturday, the United States military began an offensive in Afghanistan to pursue those militants. While the United States conducts some air operations over Pakistan, they are tightly controlled. Unmanned Predator drones are authorized to fly over Pakistani airspace, but only with approval from the Pakistani military chain of command, frequently leading to costly delays, C.I.A. officials say. Hoping to collect more intelligence, the C.I.A. opened secret bases with small numbers of operatives in Pakistan in late 2003, but it has been unable to use them for aggressive counterterrorism operations, intelligence officials say. The operatives, many of whom are C.I.A. paramilitary officers, depended on Pakistani Army commanders, whose views on cooperation with the C.I.A. vary widely, American officials say. "There are real limits on our movement" inside Pakistan, said one American official, and it has deeply frustrated intelligence officers. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to discuss any aspect of the clandestine bases. Pakistani officials said that the Americans were instantly identifiable and unlikely to succeed working alone. They say the Americans are escorted to prevent them from being kidnapped or killed, or their presence exposed, which would be damaging to the Pakistani government. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |