Aku dan sebagian besar lainnya juga mikir begitu, soalnya si Usama ini kan
punya penyakit lever dsb dan kalau masih hidup tentunya terdeteksi...but who
knows...videonya yg tampil tak ada yg baru semuanya yg lama.
- Original Message -
From: Sunny
To: @NONE
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 4:14 AM
Subject: [zamanku] Tribes could be bin Laden's downfall-ex-spy
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/2/20/worldupdates/2009-02-19T235808Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-381074-1sec=Worldupdates
Thursday February 19, 2009
Tribes could be bin Laden's downfall-ex-spy
By William Maclean
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden will probably be killed or captured when
some brave souls in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area decide to betray
him, a former senior CIA official said on Thursday.
A video grab from an undated footage from the Internet shows Al Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden making statements from an unknown location.
(REUTERS/REUTERS TV/Files)
Henry Crumpton, who led the CIA's operations in Afghanistan after the Sept.
11 attacks, said local chiefs sheltering the militant leader were likely to
abandon him one day due to disenchantment with his agenda and its perceived
failure to bring a better life.
I think Osama bin Laden will be captured or killed, and that mostly likely
will be because of a decision by local authorities, said Crumpton, now a
private security consultant.
Local tribal authorities I believe either will generate the intelligence,
and/or will participate directly in his demise, he said on the sidelines of a
conference held by the EastWest Institute global security think tank.
The al Qaeda leader has been hiding out since the Sept. 11 attacks against
U.S. cities. U.S. officials believe he is probably not far from his last
reported whereabouts, the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, near the
Pakistan border.
He has defied all efforts to find him despite a $25 million U.S. reward offer.
The possibility of betrayal has been dismissed at times by commentators who
say Pashtuns, whose lands straddle both sides of the border between the two
countries, live to a code of honour that demands unfailing hospitality towards
guests.
But Crumpton said bin Laden would eventually become vulnerable to
disappointment among his hosts at his perceived failure to bring concrete
improvements in daily life.
If you look at bin Laden or al Qaeda all they offer is a tactic of terrorism
-- they are not offering the local population economic development or
education. In fact they are destroying it.
They're just not offering any hope, and I think that people understand that
and, although intimated and fearful, there will be brave souls (who will act
against bin Laden) and my guess it that's how he will end.
MISSILE STRIKES
Crumpton, who worked for the CIA as a clandestine officer for more than two
decades, said the key to persuading local people to deny safe haven to bin
Laden and his associates was to help them gain a capacity to shape their own
development.
Once you have some modicum of security then development must be based on the
needs of the people. You address issues that the enemy is exploiting, whether
it is poverty, whether it's lack of education, there's always some unmet
expectation.
They won't do development the way America might or the way some of our NATO
alllies might, they'll have their own way and they'll have a more important
stake than anyone else.
Pakistan says one important impediment to the counter-terror effort in the
lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border is a controversial policy of
U.S. missile strikes, saying they are a violation of sovereignty.
Pakistan's civilian government and the army have complained that the U.S.
strikes from Predator drones are counterproductive and have fanned an Islamist
insurgency across northwest Pakistan.
Copyright © 2008 Reuters
