Asia-Pacific
US says bin Laden sometimes slips into Afghanistan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-07 20:49
WASHINGTON: Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden may periodically slip back into Afghanistan from his remote hideout in neighboring Pakistan, a senior White House official says, adding a new twist to the mystery of the elusive terrorist's whereabouts.
President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be spending some time in Afghanistan, where he was based while plotting the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Jones and Gates spoke Sunday on separate TV interview shows as part of an administration effort to explain and defend Obama's new Afghan war strategy, which Gates said includes a focus on preventing al-Qaida from again gaining a foothold inside Afghanistan. A concern is that the Taliban, if permitted to regain power in Kabul, could facilitate a return of al-Qaida's leadership.
The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature frustrations of the global war on terrorism that former President George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. When US forces ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001, bin Laden fled into Pakistan from his mountain redoubt. Despite being isolated, bin Laden has managed to periodically issue audio messages.
The main explanation given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden is that they simply don't know where he is.
"If we did, we'd go get him," Gates said Sunday.
Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him.
Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts, Jones replied, "The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border."
Jones did not comment on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a time period or describe more specifically bin Laden's apparent border crossings.
Gates told ABC's "This Week" that "we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is," although he agreed that his likely location is North Waziristan.
That's part of the loosely governed Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan where the border with Afghanistan is largely unrecognized and unmarked. There is little Pakistani government or military control in this remote region, and militants affiliated with al-Qaida can move freely across the frontier into Afghanistan.
