Word: isis
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...officer of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), speaking on condition of anonymity, tells TIME that bin Laden was last seen on November 17, departing the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan in anticipation of the imminent collapse of the Taliban regime. The officer says bin Laden headed for the Tora Bora area in a convoy of 25 vehicles that included four trucks carrying his family members and personal belongings. He was accompanied by al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and other operatives, as well as by senior Taliban officials from eastern Afghanistan including Jalalabad governor Mullah Abdul...
...Qaeda positions in the area. Reports about his presence in Tora Bora during the U.S. campaign there have never been confirmed, and the Pakistanis believe al-Qaeda may have deliberately created the impression that bin Laden was present in order to camouflage his move to a safer location. ISI members believe bin Laden, in fact, moved from Tora Bora to Nazian, another remote town in the lap of the White Mountains near the Pakistan border, before disappearing altogether...
...current whereabouts, the ISI believes bin Laden is still alive and is hiding somewhere in Afghanistan. However, its officers concede that a number of the al-Qaeda rank and file have sneaked into Pakistan and have taken refuge both in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and in some cities. Islamabad claims to have captured 378 al-Qaeda men on Pakistani soil over the past eight months, of whom 327 were delivered to U.S. custody - among them Abu Zubaida, a close aide to bin Laden...
...Despite the picture of bin Laden's escape painted for TIME by ISI sources, Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf had earlier speculated that the al-Qaeda leader may have died due to kidney failure. He based his assumption on the premise that bin Laden suffered from a renal condition requiring regular dialysis treatment. President Musharraf had also, of course, earlier speculated that bin Laden may have been killed during the U.S. bombing at Tora Bora...
...players, continuing conflict works. It works for the militants, who have found an escape from grinding poverty in the gun and the cash and prestige it attracts. That's true of both the indigenous Kashmiri militants and the "guest mujahedin" who come in from Pakistan, veterans of ISI-run training camps in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and former Taliban-ruled territory in Afghanistan, who subscribe to the same ideal of waging a purifying jihad...