In Hunt for Bin Laden, a New Approach

The Bush administration tried to reinvigorate the flagging hunt for bin Laden early last year by redeploying Predator drones, intelligence officers and Special Forces units to Pakistan and Afghanistan. But by then, U.S. counterterrorism officials said, the war in Iraq had already given bin Laden and his core command precious time to regroup and solidify their new base of operations in northwestern Pakistan.

More recently, the search has been hobbled by a tattered relationship between the United States and Pakistan. CIA and U.S. military officials said cooperation is so bad that they now withhold intelligence about the suspected whereabouts of al-Qaeda commanders out of fear that the Pakistanis might tip them off. Leaders in Pakistan respond that they are committed to fighting al-Qaeda. But they also persistently deny that bin Laden is in their country.

Although they lack hard evidence, U.S. officials said it is only logical that bin Laden is in Pakistan, where he has roamed the mountains along the Afghan border for two decades and enjoyed the protection of Taliban leaders.

"In many ways, it's a perfect place," said Bruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security Council. "But there's not a scintilla of evidence that we have any idea where he is."

U.S. intelligence officials said bin Laden's fear of being caught prevents him from overseeing al-Qaeda's day-to-day operations. But they said there is no doubt he remains in charge of the network.

Bin Laden "remains al-Qaeda's authoritative source for strategic and tactical guidance," Ted Gistaro, the U.S. government's top intelligence analyst for al-Qaeda, said in a speech last month. He added that bin Laden, along with his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, "continue to maintain al-Qaeda's unity and its focus on their strategic vision and operational priorities."

Bin Laden is believed to depend on a small circle of fellow Saudis for his personal security. But officials said the Taliban provides him and his lieutenants with a network of safe houses.

According to an internal Taliban memo viewed by The Washington Post, Taliban security operatives have a code name for bin Laden -- Taqwa, an Arabic term that means fear of or reverence for God.

A Hamstrung Hunt

In late 2005, the CIA disbanded Alec Station, its special unit dedicated to tracking bin Laden. The search was going nowhere.

The CIA concluded that bin Laden's importance had diminished compared with other terrorist threats, such as al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq. Analysts who had specialized in tracking the terrorist leader were reassigned.

A year later, however, many intelligence officials were beginning to change their minds. After the disruption of the airliner plot in London in August 2006, it became clear that al-Qaeda's core command -- previously thought to have been knocked out -- had made a comeback. The CIA later dispatched scores of additional officers to Pakistan's ungoverned tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province, where al-Qaeda had taken root.

The environment, however, had become more hostile than ever. Resurgent Taliban fighters had forced the Pakistani government to sign cease-fire agreements in the lawless tribal border areas of North and South Waziristan. Surveys showed that bin Laden's popularity had soared among Pakistanis and that animosity toward the United States was pervasive.