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...reappearance of bin Laden came at a moment when U.S. intelligence officials felt pretty good about themselves. Even as the cassette tape was making its way out of bin Laden's secret lair, his pursuers were sending out signals across the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he may be hiding. In recent weeks U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agencies have stepped up their search for top al-Qaeda leaders, with the skies above the mountains buzzing with spy planes and unmanned Predator drones, and a network of local spies and informants has been scouring the landscape for information. A Pakistani...
...objective is to tighten the net around bin Laden and his deputies. In December a U.S. guided-missile attack in North Waziristan, based on intelligence from agents on the ground, reportedly killed Hamza Rabia, an Egyptian believed to have been the latest occupant of al-Qaeda's No. 3 spot. Then, in early January, the U.S. and Pakistan seized on the chance to bag even bigger prey. Details of the Damadola operation are beginning to emerge, and they provide a tantalizing glimpse into the intensifying hunt for bin Laden. A Peshawar-based official told TIME that in the past month...
Although the missile strike provoked a round of protests in Pakistan's tribal areas that forced President Pervez Musharraf to distance his government from the operation, cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan in the hunt for bin Laden has quietly deepened. A Peshawar-based Pakistani intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity says Washington has an understanding with Islamabad that allows the U.S. to strike within Pakistan's border regions--providing the Americans have actionable intelligence and especially if the Pakistanis won't or can't take firm action. Pakistan's caveat is that it would formally protest such strikes...
...territory in which bin Laden may be hiding remains forbidding to outsiders. In pockets of Pakistan's borderlands, a resurgent Taliban has begun to impose its extreme brand of Islamic law, including a ban on music and the Internet, and the summary execution of criminals. Some counterterrorism experts, though, are cautiously optimistic that the turmoil in al-Qaeda's high command they hope was caused by the strike in Damadola may force its leaders to expose themselves. "You got to presume that all the al-Qaeda guys are asking each other who got smoked," says a former U.S. intelligence official...
...remains just that--hope--the hunters have shown indications that they may be closer to picking up their targets' scent. A Pakistani intelligence official says Pakistani intelligence agents and CIA drones are searching the mountainsides for the second group that crossed from Afghanistan. In the message delivered last week, bin Laden signaled he would not allow himself to be captured alive. "I swore that I will not die except free, despite the bitter taste of death," he said. On that much, both bin Laden and his pursuers seem to agree: one way or another, his end will come...