Closing in on Osama bin Laden

WASHINGTON - Last year, U.S.-operated predator drones launched 36 missile attacks in the skies over Pakistan.

To date this year, there have been at least 18 such attacks, which have killed dozens of civilians.

But according to Pakistani officials, those attacks have also cut deeply into the al-Qaida leadership.

"Twelve of the top 20 al-Qaida leaders have been taken out in the last several months since September 2008, and I think that we will continue to look for them. The target is to make sure that al-Qaida, as an operating entity, is put out of business," Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani says.

Taking a break recently from back-to-back meetings followed by a quick lunch, Haqqani sat thoughtfully in a reception area in his office and declared, "al-Qaida and all of the terrorists groups are a threat to civilization and to humanity. We will continue to work with our allies to identify their networks and break their back."

For the first time since Osama bin Laden escaped U.S. forces in Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S.-Pakistani effort to capture or kill al-Qaida leaders appears to be making some headway.

The Central Intelligence Agency remains confident that bin Laden is still in Pakistan, and finding him is still a top priority.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Capitol Hill last week, said, "One of our hopes is that as Pakistani military moves in, combined with our operations, we may have a better chance to get at him."

Panetta indicated the CIA has increased the number of officers and recruited assets providing information to the agency.

The key, according to experts, is the recent increase in the tempo and scale of Pakistani military operations against the Taliban.

"If the Pakistanis are actually committed to this, and are working on this as opposed to standing on the sidelines, it would make a gigantic difference. Possibly their inclusion in this could be a game changer," says former CIA Field Commander Gary Berntsen.

"There are some things that the Pakistanis are doing that are changing the dynamics significantly on the ground," says Berntsen, whose unit chased bin Laden into Tora Bora in December 2001. "That's much more important than any pin-prick stuff we're going to do with predator drones."

Berntsen and others also note al-Qaida may be making adjustments as well.

"I hear and I've been reading material that suggests al-Qaida operatives are leaving Pakistan and heading to Somalia and Yemen," Berntsen says.

Yemen has become the scene of increasing attacks on Westerners. According to press reports and Yemeni security officials, nine missing foreigners - including seven German nationals, a Briton and a South Korean - were found dead in the troubled northern Saada region of Yemen on Monday.

The foreigners, which included three children, disappeared last week while on a picnic. Yemen, the poorest nation in the Middle East, is bin Laden's ancestral home and has recently become a hotbed of al-Qaida activity. That activity is said to be driven by orders from the very top of al-Qaida, which is still ensconced in Pakistan.

However, Pakistan's success against the Taliban is critical and it could help track down al-Qaida's leadership, Haqqani says. But he says it's clear the fight will continue for some time.

"We must not underestimate the problem of terrorism as long as people feel that this is a way of getting their objectives, and there are recruits available to groups like al-Qaida. When you take out a top leader, somebody else will replace them," Haqqani says.

According to information from U.S. government sources, 10 members of al-Qaida's top 20 leadership have died in the past 10 months.

• Khalid Habib (veteran combat leader and operations chief involved with plots to attack the West; deputy to Shaikh Sa'id al-Masri, al-Qaida's No. 3)
• Rashid Rauf (mastermind of the 2006 transatlantic airliner plot)
• Abu Khabab al-Masri (al-Qaida's most seasoned explosives expert and trainer, and the man responsible for its chemical and biological weapons efforts)
• Abdallah Azzam (senior aide to Sheikh Sa'id al-Masri)
• Abu al-Hassan al-Rimi (led cross-border operations against Coalition forces in Afghanistan)
• Abu Sulaiman al-Jaziri (senior external operations planner and facilitator)
• Abu Jihad al-Masri (senior operational planner and propagandist)
• Usama al-Kini (Marriott attack planner and listed on the FBI's terrorist most wanted list)
• Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan (involved in the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania)
• Abu Sulaiman al-Jaziri (senior trainer and external operations plotter)

"While you and I will get tremendous satisfaction the day Osama bin Laden is either apprehended or confirmed to have been removed from the world, the fact of the matter is that al-Qaida and its nihilist ideology will have to be eliminated totally, not just in terms of the elimination of individual leaders," Haqqani says.

U.S. intelligence sources indicate that day may come after all.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan and the Pakistani war against two different, but related elements of the Taliban is shrinking the area where al-Qaida's leaders can hide.

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