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Hostility and Hosts Await bin Laden in Pakistan
Friday, December 21, 2001
By Eric Slater
Times staff writer

Developing "Where's Osama?" theories is a waste of good time, everyone here seems to agree, even while acknowledging that they spend a fair amount doing it. The technique begins with making a few necessarily broad assumptions--the first being that Bin Laden is still alive.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Source
When Osama bin Laden seemed to melt into the snowcapped mountains of eastern Afghanistan more than a week ago, many speculated that he had made a simple escape, taking an obvious route.

Bin Laden had headed east, the thinking went, out of the rain of U.S. bombs on Tora Bora and into the arms of friendly tribes along the lawless and porous border with Pakistan.

It's a fine theory, many in Pakistan say--although perhaps only a bit better than a few others. Any travel, they insist, even into the tribal lands that produced many of his Al Qaeda fighters, would be far more difficult than many Western analysts suggest. But those who have spent their lives in this region are very careful about making predictions regarding the frontier, where virtually every man carries a gun--or a grenade launcher, or both--and much of the territory has no government police force at all.

"He could maybe stay in tribal areas, but not for very long," said Lateef Asridi, a former member of parliament from the Khyber tribal district. "The Pakistan government is after him, the Americans are after him, the British are after him, and they know to look here."
(More: LATimes.com News Source)
2001 © The Los Angeles Times.

Dan