Wins(?) And Losses (?) In Spookworld

The wild and wacky world of spooks has been getting a fair amount of probably unwelcome play in the world's media of late. First, there is the ongoing Affair of the Dead Hamas Gunrunner in Dubai. This has been joined by the Snatch of Taliban's Number Two Heavyweight in Pakistan. The second, at least can be seen legitimately as a victory for the guys down the hall in black-ops. The first may be another black eye for the Masters of the Mossad.

Arguably the world is better off now that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has gone to his reward. The late Mr Mabhouh was a talented, highly motivated, true believing thug of the blackest sort, a specialist in the arts of clandestine killing, fomenting terror, and supplying war. Powered by hate, zeal, and revanchism, he stood behind killings, kidnappings, and the knifefighting sort of war which has long characterized the Israeli-Arab conflict.

The Israelis no doubt wanted him dead. There is no doubt but that the government, intelligence services, and people of Israel are very happy that Mr Mabhouh is now examining the root systems of daisies up close and personal. But, there is doubt that the government of Israel and its legendary intelligence service, the Mossad, are responsible for the Mabhouh Hit.

This is not to say it is impossible for the Mossad to have shown the awesome combination of arrogance and amateur tradecraft which is so evident in the events surrounding the death of al-Mabhouh. The mind rebels against the notion that the often highly competent Mossad could have been so indifferent to the presence and capacities of closed circuit surveillance television systems as to leave a virtual minute-by-minute record of the eleven person team's presence and actions. The mind also boggles at the Mossad being so totally out-to-lunch as to counterfeit passports so poorly (not using an alphanumeric coding for example) as to invite easy identification.

(A side question: How come the eagle-eyed pass control officials of Dubai missed the glaring errors on the passports, particularly those purportedly issued by the Irish and German governments? Given that governments notify each other as to the format of passports, it is hard to understand how these obviously false documents got by the border guards and customs men.)

Balancing these concerns is historical reality. From time to time the Mossad, apparently driven by a misplaced belief in its own press releases, has performed with exceptional arrogance and ineptitude. One occasion was the unfortunate hit conducted in Norway on an innocent Lebanese waiter misidentified as a terrorist figure of note. Another was the badly botched assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997 which left the Israelis covered with embarrassment, the head of Mossad sacked, and Jordan's king outraged.

Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister in 1997. He is PM again today. The Mossad director back then was an overly muscular sort. So is Meir Dagan, who has been capo of Israel's spooks for eight years now.

Mossad has enjoyed a great deal of presumed success in eliminating Israel's enemies using clandestine and covert means. They have not been immune to allowing success to be imputed improperly to their efforts rather than pointing out the potential for internecine rivalries to have been behind the death of one enemy or another. Indeed, the Israelis have turned the reputation of the Mossad into an impressive weapon in their psychological warfare arsenal.

As a result it would not behoove the Israeli government to deny involvement in the death of al-Mabhouh. At the same time the customs of international protocol prohibit claiming responsibility. So, the Israeli ForMin was right in neither denying nor accepting Mossad's role in the killing.

As long as studied ambiguity surrounds the Dubai Affair, no government other than that of Dubai is going to be particularly perturbed by the demise of Mr Mabhouh. He was a throughly unpleasant character with whom one dealt only because state policy required. If the Dubai chief of police had not been so personally annoyed by the blatant nature of the killing and the almost defiant way in which it was conducted, it is doubtful that anyone in the United Arab Emirates would have been disturbed by the event.

However, the chief has put his head on the line in the case so now other governments must as well. The British are taking the matter seriously. So also are the Irish and Germans. This means, at the least, a great show of "getting to the bottom of matters" must be made over the next few days and weeks. Ultimately, this may very well rebound to the overall diplomatic and political disadvantage of Israel--particularly if Mossad was involved even indirectly.

If Mossad was carrying out the instructions of its government, some very real soul searching is necessary. No, there is no need to contemplate the ethics of the killing: it was well deserved by the recipient. Rather, the "Institute" must re-examine its tendency toward an unfortunate and periodic exhibitionism. There is a reason for clandestine and covert operations--not to get caught, not to be indicted, and, most assuredly, not to be convicted even in the court of public opinion.

The "win" column for the spooks is headed by the capture of Mullah Baradar by a combination of CIA and the Pakistani Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI.) Baradar has been on the top of the capture list since December for the US. Killing him would have been OK but catching him was far preferable. Finally, a fortuitous happening apparently allowed CIA to connect all the relevant dots and, with ISI in tow, take the Mullah into durance vile.

The Pakistanis had a couple of good reasons to cooperate whole heartedly in the take down as not only has the US finally agreed to furnish them with (unarmed) small UAVs but Islamabad has come to realize that only by cooperating can they keep themselves in play for influence in Afghanistan following the defeat of Taliban. It appears the Pakistani government has decided that the US is likely to achieve its minimum necessary strategic goal of not-losing in Afghanistan and now is looking at how best to play the endgame.

Baradar is currently in Pakistani hands with CIA playing an observer role. This implies that the interrogation will be more robust than if the mullah were in American custody. The consequences in terms of organisational disruption for Taliban are likely to be severe and quite negative. Taken together with the ongoing Predator strikes and the offensive in Helmand province, the future for the Fearless Thugs of Taliban does not look as bright as it did a month or two ago.

It is unfortunate that the same cannot be said of Hamas in the aftermath of the killing of al-Mabhouh. But, in the world of spooks one out of two ain't half bad.

Connecting The Dots Ain't That Easy

In the never ending and totally predictable political sports of Pointing The Finger and Passing The Blame as well as Cover Your Posterior, the expectable has happened. The President of the United States has moved to exonerate Janet Napolitano and her Heimatsicherheitsamt while shifting the onus to "systemic failure" in general and CIA in particular. His flunkies (unidentified but termed "senior") opined that the dots were all there but no one connected them properly until after Christmas Day.

Yup, the dots were all there. No doubt about it. The Underwear Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was surrounded by dots. The National Security Council intercepts referred to "the Nigerian" and, famously, Abudulmutallab's father warned the US embassy personnel in Nigeria of his fears regarding his son's "radicalization." All these occurred in a context which gave Yemen pride of place as the new center of Islamist jihadi terrorism.

Lots of dots.

The problem is not that there were too few dots. Rather the difficulty which confronts every intelligence agency analyst (beyond too many layers of "coordination" and "review") is simply that their universe is comprised of nothing but dots. Lots of dots. Oodles and gobs of dots. Often the dots are smudgy, hazy or flatly contradictory. The venue of an intelligence analyst is rather like one of those French pointillist paintings viewed from close up.

Dots on top of dots. Dots of different sizes. Dots of different colors. Nothing but dots. It is enough to drive one dotty on the best of days. And, the best of days are few and very far between.

It is simple, attractive, and a species of cheap shot for some "senior" administration official or other political hack to tie the tail of blame to the cat of intelligence. It is also, in the longer run, not constructive. As the record shows from the Vietnam War period, unjustified criticism like rejecting intelligence appreciations which do not match political or personal expectations leads to a weakening of the intelligence process and a pollution of the intelligence product.

This does not mean that room for improvement does not exist. It always does. New and more effective ways to see significant patterns in the blizzard of dots as well the distribution of product to all consumer agencies are always both necessary and under development. (Not that most of these mean the view from the worm's eye level of the analyst becomes necessarily more prescient, more precise, or more rapid since the production of dots always exceeds the development of new "dot management" techniques.)

There is little, if any, utility in more presidential or congressional reviews or investigations. All these do (if history is the reliable guide it normally is) will be the manufacture of new, redundant, and typically encumbering levels of "review" and "coordination."

In the case of the Underwear Bomber like that of the Shoe Bomber eight years ago, the combination of inept bomb manufacture and passengers possessed of a healthy instinct for self-preservation and quick reflexes made up for deficiencies in "dot management." The realities of life indicate that the same sort of terminal protection will have to suffice in the future as it has in the past.

This gloomy view is not predicated upon any lack of respect for the always developing capacity of the intelligence community or a similar absence of faith in new security technology, but rather in the historically rooted contention that the bad guys, the Islamst jihadist terrorists, have the initiative. Fortunately, the most recent example of al-Qaeda skill shows that while the initiative is there and is powerfully reinforced by the processes of ideological radicalization, the skill level is low--at least in the critical area of explosive detonation. The extent to which this fortunate low ability level is the consequence of the American and other countries' efforts to disrupt and destroy terrorist entities is arguable.

The Underware Bomber is behind us. But the problem of connecting dots is not. This reality is equally present in countering the ongoing threats of terror and formulating a policy regarding Iran and its regime.

The one year deadline set by President Obama is about up. Certainly, the Iranians have made no move toward compliance with the relevant UN Security Council demands. If President Obama is to be taken at his word, push-comes-to-shove time will be upon us long before the first birds of Spring--even here in the Southwest.

Connecting the dots on Iran is even more difficult than identifying the right "Nigerian" and pointing at the correct Christmas Attack chattered about on numerous al-Qaeda oriented websites. It is also (pace those on board NW 253) far more important to the future of the US and the world generally.

Complicating the problem of connecting the massively differing and contradictory dots from within Iran is the twin difficulty of connecting the dots which might indicate the direction which will be taken by both Russia and China without whose cooperation more sanctions will be as much of a waste as their predecessors have proven to be. The questions of just what the Men of the Kremlin and the Gnomes of Beijing are up to equals in importance the questions regarding the stability and desperation of the Mullahs in Tehran.

While a fair amount of public speculation has occurred regarding the relations of sanctions, the opposition, and the mullahocracy, there has been no duplication of that with respect to the latest Russian gambit and the ever more in-your-face attitude of the Chinese government. Yet the stances of both Russia and China are central to connecting the dots on the matter of Iranian political will in the face of domestic opposition which is not fading away and the seemingly resolute rhetoric emanating from the Obama White House.

One factor that cannot be in doubt is the evident belief on the part of both Vladimir Putin and the Chinese leadership alike holding that President Obama is fundamentally weak of both mind and will.

In his effort to hold the pending Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty hostage, Vladimir Putin is betting that the airhead Obama vision of a nuclear weapons free world is so compelling to the president that further concessions can be wrested from the American side. This cynical but far from unrealistic opinion is reinforced by the strong US need for full Russian compliance with any new sanction regime imposed upon Iran. Given the continued asymmetry between American and Russian nuclear capacities, the gambit is well worth the gamble.

If anything the Chinese are playing a stronger hand that the Russians. Their cooperation is utterly essential. Considering that China dictated the course of play in Copenhagen earlier this month and came away victorious and giving proper thought to the amount of US debt held by Beijing, their diplomats play a very strong hand. Further militating against any genuine cooperation with the US on the Iran question is both their investments in the country and their disapproval of internal opposition (to say nothing of external support for such opposition).

Right now, some very unfortunate analysts are trying to connect the dots on the questions of "Probable Russian (Chinese) Courses of Action In Response to An American Course of Action." As neither country is transparent, the dots will be notable in both their density and contradictory nature. In that the success or failure of Obama administration policy regarding Iran hangs on the final pattern discerned (or imposed) by the analysts, this task is more difficult and far more critical than was that of identifying the Underwear Bomber before he boarded the flight to Detroit.

Now, unfortunately, the assorted analytical prognosticators are laboring under the added pressure of investigations and reviews--and damnation from the All Highest. Their efforts and our future would have been far better served if Mr Obama had stuck to improving his golf game rather than attacking those whose efforts are so critical to his policies.

Why We Will Lose In Afghanistan

No matter how successful the current American and British offensive operations might be in Helmand, at the end of the week it will not matter. It will not matter how effective the US and its co-belligerents are in the new approach of "clear and hold." Neither does the number of Taliban killed or forced to flee to Pakistan or points beyond change the reality that must now be faced.

The US and its allies are doomed to lose.

A brutal truth to accept. Still it is one which must be accepted.

And, so, why the gloom laden conclusion, Geeko?

There are several reasons, bucko. Here they are in a rough order of importance.

We went about the war all wrong from the very first moment, before the boots of the first American hit the dirt of Afghanistan. The Deep Thinkers of the Bush/Cheney administration failed to conceptualise the goal, definition of victory, and theory of victory correctly. The initial failure was potentiated by trying to gain the goal and some attendant simulacrum of victory on the cheap, by "shock and awe" rather than through manpower heavy operations. Then, to make a very bad situation even worse, the administration committed the US to an exercise in "nation building" with the end product being hypothesized as a Western style liberal, pluralistic republic with all the institutions of press, separation of faith and state, autonomous judiciary, and so on that have been so painfully developed here over the course of centuries.

As a result the Taliban and al-Qaeda were never really defeated. They were given time and sanctuary in which to rest, refit, rebuild, and exploit the failures of the Afghan government put in place under the guard of our (foreign) bayonets. The ever dragging inconclusive war tilted more and more in Taliban's favor in part because the lack of manpower required the extensive use of air power. The fast movers and helicopter gunships killed insurgents, but they also and quite inevitably killed civilians as well.

The "economy of force" operations in Afghanistan (to use the ever-so-sanitary language of the Pentagon) also meant the US had insufficient troops to wrest and keep the initiative through active combat operations, provide necessary point defense against suicide bombing attacks or small unit raids, train the Afghan National Forces, and provide support for civil affairs projects.

All of these factors worked together to assist Taliban's resurgence. Also contributing directly to the Taliban breakout in recent months was the attitude and actions of the Pakistani government and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Taliban had critical foreign sanctuary and support, a sanctuary and support which the US was loath to publicly denounce until very, very recently.

The Pakistani support and sanctuary are unlikely to abate in the near- or mid-term given the inability or unwillingness of the Pakistani military to acknowledge that India is not the "main enemy." ISI is dancing with the devil in its relation with Taliban, but that will not force any policy change.

Another reason for the coming US defeat is the nature, character, and agenda of the Karzai regime, the regime which took power and kept it under our protection and with our assistance. Karzai, to an extent that would make Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq blush, is an openly aggrandizing seeker after power.

His administration is corrupt. It is inefficient. It is riddled with Taliban sympathisers. Karzai is willing and ready to do anything, absolutely anything at all, to win the upcoming election. From the massively repressive "Family Law" which places Shia women (at the least) back to the days of Taliban but makes the reactionary Islamist clerics smile with satisfied delight to the repeated promises to "control" the foreign troops, Karzai does whatever he can to gain and hold support through the presidential election a month hence.

If re-elected as seems most probable at the moment, Karzai will deliver on some of these promises. Women will be put back in the garbage sack, (Opps! Bad Geek! You mean the burqua) and he will seek to interject himself and his regime into the military chain of command.

He will succeed in this to a significant degree as he can control the pace of development of the Afghan National Forces whose boots must join ours on the ground if "clear and hold" is to be more than one more catchy phrase. Karzai's goal in this is to facilitate "peace talks" with Taliban and the formation of a "government of inclusion."

The usual suspect, ISI, will back him covertly in this effort through its own contacts with Mullah Omar and Company. ISI will be joined in supporting Karzai's search for peace and inclusion by two unusual suspects: The British public and We the People, the American public.

The British are showing a significant war weariness in the face of mounting casualties in the Helmand offensive. This isn't surprising. There seem to be no significant British national interests at stake in the never-ending war. This is not the old British public of Kipling's day which was content to see the bones of its sons bleach on the far marches of empire for obscure reasons of state.

Not even the bracing remarks of Joe Biden regarding the bravery of British troops or his opinion that the "sacrifices are worth it," will alter the declining support for the war in Merrie Old England. The Taliban are not the Nazis. Afghanistan does not rest across a narrow channel from the storied white cliffs of Dover. The shocking realities of 9/11 and 7/7 are now almost as far in the past as the Maggie Thatcher's Great Campaign for the Sheep of Falklands.

The American public is not far behind the British in rejecting the war in Afghanistan as SecDef Gates noted last week. The effort in Afghanistan has lasted as long as the major US involvement in South Vietnam and only the very, very low body count has prevented a wholesale revulsion at the war. (And, the absence of the draft to be sure.)

Our first post-modern president, the Nice Young Man From Chicago, to whom every person's narrative is as valid as any other, has no real stomach for continuing the war in Afghanistan one minute longer than is necessary to proclaim for one reason or another that the US has accomplished its "goals" in the place. He has already taken the first step in that direction.

The forthcoming elections in Afghanistan provide the opportunity for a graceful US defeat. As American "super-diplomat" Richard Holbrooke acknowledges, the elections will not be perfect, anymore, he averred than was that in the US in 2000. Leaving aside this inapt and inept comparison, the Holbrooke position signals that as long as Karzai wins in a more-or-less transparent effort in democracy, the results are just jake with us.

This implies that Karzai will have a free hand to carry out his efforts at brokering a simulacrum of peace with Taliban leading to a government of national reconciliation. At that point Mr Holbrooke will link arms with Karzai and Omar to sing a chorus of "Give Peace A Chance." The Americans will then leave as will the troops of other nations. We will, of course, leave behind a vast pool of money and assorted civilian experts to continue the task of post-war reconstruction.

The US will, at this point, have been defeated. On the up side, as was the case in Vietnam, it is not the formal enemy which defeated us. No. We will have defeated ourselves.

Once again we will have the chance to learn that bad ideas about war bring defeat. But, we will pay no attention to that lesson.

Which Side Is Pakistan On?

The self-evident answer is: It's own.

In looking at the US-NATO-Afghan National Government efforts against Taliban and al-Qaeda, the answer is not so self-evident. Neither is the answer self-evident when considering the larger question of the confrontation between Islamist/jihadist groups and those in opposition.

At least some members of the government in Afghanistan hold Pakistan, specifically the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) responsible for the continued presence and strength of Taliban and al-Qaeda. Beyond that, Sibghatullah Mijaddedi, the Speaker of the Afghan Senate, argued in a speech in New Delhi that "eighty to ninety per cent" of all terrorist attacks world wide can be traced back to camps located in Pakistan. The report can be found on line at http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200806012176.htm.

While the Speaker bemoaned the apparent lack of effort on the part of US or NATO forces in his country to neutralise the recruitment depots and training camps located in Pakistan, he leveled his biggest rhetorical guns on the ISI. "The ISI is exporting terrorists trained in their terror camps."

Zeroing in on the situation in Afghanistan, Mijaddedi added, "We are suffering because of the interference of ISI in our country; everyday we lose our people, young and old, indiscriminately."

The Geek leans toward agreement with the Speaker's contentions. ISI, as the US has known for at least twenty years, is riddled with Islamists (to use the accurate term currently frowned upon by various agencies of the US government.) When the Reagan Administration ordered the turn over of our resistance assistance efforts to the Pakistanis, specifically ISI, a major mistake was made.

No. It was worse than a mistake. It was a blunder.

It was also the source of many of our current problems, not only in the "good war" in Afghanistan but elsewhere in the world.

ISI put the Taliban on the map. ISI personnel funneled US money, US provided weapons and equipment and other goodies to the "students" at assorted ISI sponsored and maintained madrassas. ISI provided both military and political guidance to assure the Taliban success in the multi-party internal war which ensued upon the departure of Soviet forces.

After the US backed Northern Alliance did the heavy lifting and major fighting to remove Taliban, ISI kept up its intimate relationship with the remnants of the shattered government. This meant ISI kept its relationship with Taliban's "guest" and ideological soulmate, al-Qaeda.

Over the next six years and despite the pumping of gigabucks into the coffers of the Pakistani military--most of which went to weapons systems notably unuseful in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism--the protective ISI cloak spread over the numerous camps, "charities" and religious institutions which existed and exist only to provide support, assistance and recruits for the varied types of "fighters" who do the dirty work for Taliban, al-Qaeda and akin bodies.

ISI will continue to perform its role of sponsor, facilitator and protector of these jihadists regardless of the nature of the Pakistani government. ISI, like other clandestine services in other states over many, many decades is a power onto itself. The government has (and probably has desired) only the most tenuous of formal authority over ISI.

There is no reason to expect this to change.

One of the most grave deficiencies in whatever passed for planning prior to the invasion of Afghanistan was the failure to properly and effectively appreciate the role of ISI in assuring the survival of Taliban (and al-Qaeda.) It could or at least should not have come as a surprise when American personnel encountered ISI officers in the company of "fugitive" Taliban leaders.

When decisions at the policy level not only allowed the ISI officers to be flown out of Afghanistan but permitted the Taliban figures to board the aircraft as well, the ultimate success of our campaign was placed at risk. Any justification based on the cruciality of Pakistan as an "ally" in the Great Global War on Terror is simply silly.

Even sillier was the initial unwillingness to either strike directly at the camps in North and South Waziristan or, considering our leverage on the Pakistani government five and six years ago, to insist on their military taking less ineffective action. That wouldn't have been a mission impossible. Recall that we were able to lever Musharraf into placing A.Q. Khan under house arrest. (Yes, the Geek knows Khan has recanted his confession.)

We didn't even bother to do an imitation of the Big, Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing, threatening to blow down the house that ISI built.

Now. Get a grip on a companion (or at least contemporaneous) development.

According to Reuters-India the Darool-Uloom Deoband (DUD) seminary, a very conservative Islamist institution controlling many smaller seminaries has issued a fatwa against terrorism. (http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-33848320080601.)

"Islam rejects all kinds of unjust violence, breach of peace, bloodshed, murder and plunder and does not allow it in any form," or so the DUD rector, Habibur Rehman said.

Yeah. Right.

Regardless of the objective truthfulness of the statement, it and the fatwa are important. India has the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan.

Several other facts are equally important. Officially secular India is overwhelmingly Hindu in religious affiliation and the historical record shows that Hindus can become very fervent slayers of Muslims. Of late there has been a very, very irritating uptick in terrorist actions linked to Muslim actors.

Before we break our arms patting the DUD clerics for their courageous drawing a line in the sand against terrorism, take a closer look at the document.

The fatwa reads in part, "It is proved from clear guidelines provided in the Holy Quran that allegation of terrorism against a religion like Islam, which preaches world peace, is nothing but a lie."

That's not exactly news. It is precisely what many Muslims--including apologists for terror--have been saying throughout the world.

A prominent cleric and leader of a major Islamic group added his own gloss to the fatwa while reading it. "At present, there is a propaganda to equate Jehad with terrorism. Jehad is basically for establishment of peace, which is a fundamental right of human beings. Terrorism, meanwhile, is the gravest crime as held by Quran and Islam.”

In attempting to parse meaningfully between "jihad" (very, very good) and "terrorism" (very, very bad) the cleric, Maulana Qari Sayeed Mohammad Usman, president of Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, added nothing new. His interpretation has been standard around the world for years now.

If none of this is stop-the-presses hot news, why bother with the fatwa? Wasn't the denunciation of terrorism by the DUD president last February enough?

No.

Undoubtedly the clerics of DUD are well aware that Islamist rooted acts of terror are not going to suddenly halt as a result of the fatwa any more than they did in the wake of the denunciation. The issuance of the fatwa gives Indian Muslims generally and the Islamists of DUD in particular political cover.

The next time a bomb goes off and a group with a jihadist name claims responsibility, the good folks at DUD can foist the blame off to "outside agitators."

Outsiders, like, can we say, ISI?

The long running contretemps between India and Pakistan is grounds enough to find the hand of Islamabad behind any destructive loud noise in India. The intelligence and clandestine service of India is well aware of ISI's involvement with Taliban and al-Qaeda as well as other groups active not only in the disputed Kashmir but throughout India.

ISI will get the blame. Quite possibly it will deserve it.

At least in the dead of night, in a dark room with locked door and drawn drapes, the US should do the same.

Perhaps the US should go further. Perhaps our better interests to say nothing of the interests of the Afghans and even the average Pakistani would be served by showing the new civilian government what we know of ISI's machinations.

We can add, "You can do something about it."

"Or we will."

Is Osama Really, Really Hiding In A Cave?

For some while now, the Geek has been chatting with associates from a former occupation. One of the chief subjects was Osama, Osama, Where's Osama? No conclusions were reached, but a consensus emerged.

Now, a former intelligence service chief has preempted our consensus. Lt-General Asad Durrani, the one-time jefe of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), has gone public with a well-founded "speculation." You can find it at Reuters UK in an article that appeared today on-line. http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL0915039620071009?feedType=nl&feedName=uktopnewsmid

While the Geek would like to imagine (as do many others) that the ascetic bin Laden is living in a cave somewhere in the Tribal Agencies along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, it doesn't seem too likely that this is the case. (It is tough to let go of the pleasant fantasies of a life worse than the most bottom dwelling Turkish prison.)

The Geek admits that the physical terrain of the Tribal Agency regions of Pakistan is tough to search and easy to hide in. He further stipulates that the folks living in the area put a high value on hospitality. He further readily agrees that the process of "Talibanization" of the Tribal Agencies has progressed to a highly significant degree. Additionally, the Geek eagerly points out that ISI and the Pakistani security forces are heavily penetrated by Islamists quite sympathetic with bin Laden's status and message.

Having granted all these key points, the Geek is still unconvinced that the Symbol-in-Chief of global jihadism has been hunkered down in a stone hut or a cave for the past six years. As General Durrani suggests, word does get around in even the most clannish tribal areas. Given the size of the price on Mr bin Laden's head, any whisper of his whereabouts would be magnified by the powerful megaphone of human greed. At least eventually.

Cities are great places to hide. Hordes of people, crowded streets, the inherent anonymity that exists in urban environments make for better cover and concealment than rocky slopes and empty spaces. Close associates of Osma bin Laden's have chosen the urban setting in which to hide albeit without success.

(Ramzi Binalshibh was nailed in Karachi in September 2002 and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi in March 2003.)

Although the former ISI capo would be loath to admit this, it is quite possible that neither of these men had the status and therefore the protection afforded to Osama bin Laden. Perhaps they served the role of "throwaways"--tossed off the Pakistani troika to satisfy the baying American wolves.

For bin Laden, an urban refuge would have a number of advantages. In a city he would have access to communications, transportation, medical care. All of these are critical considerations given that the man has to have some contact with followers and supporters. He needs to be able to move safely. And, his health may not be in a terminal condition as some have alleged (or hoped), but highly credible reports dating back years indicate he no longer has youthful robustness.

The task of concealment in plain sight is eased by the definitely uneasing possibility that the Pakistanis have not been looking for bin Laden with any sort of due diligence. Not only would he be protected by his supporters and sympathisers among the police, intelligence, and security forces, it is within the realm of possibility that the current government has reached a tacit agreement with the King of All Fugitives.

Leave us alone and we'll do the same for you.

Why not? It would be in the immediate best interests of the lads in Islamabad to turn the Nelsonian eye in bin Laden's direction. It serves Osama's best interests to have a secure base with all the conveniences of modern life.

Of course, the arrangements would have a certain precarious aspect. The internal political situation of Pakistan is far from stable. The election is up in the air until the less than predictable Supreme Court of Pakistan rules on the legality of the election and the return of Bhutto. The Islamists have not shown a willingness to forget the goal of further Islamising Pakistan.

Then there is the matter of Osama bin Laden having called for the killing of Musharraf. One small indicator is the lack of any serious attempt to put the call into effect. Granted that General Musharraf is surrounded by a defense in depth, that isn't enough explanation.

Other equally hard targets have been effectively engaged by individuals willing to die in the attempt.

Another possibility is simply that the word went out on the Islamist streets not to take the taped appeal seriously. Contradictory messages are nothing new in politics, let alone radical groups.

But, wait one, Geek, you might object as you point out that in the past couple of days the Pakistani armed forces appear to have moved aggressively against Taliban strongholds in the Tribal Agencies.

Yes, the Geek cheerfully agrees.

There has been a great deal of sound and fury from the mountains of Wazirastan, but does it mean anything except the armed forces are finally reacting to the combination of Taliban provocation and American pressure? Dead Talibanistas, or even dead peasants are important to someone like bin Laden only in so far as they provide martyr oriented propaganda.

It does not signify either the absence of an understanding between bin Laden and the government (or elements within it) or a collapse of the deal. (Right now, if the Geek were Osama he would be wondering just why General Durrani is meeting with the press and speculating the way he is.)

Even if Osama is not currently somewhere in urban Pakistan, even if he is in some other city in some other country today, he will return. Our Osama hunters might be well advised to look for someone with a changeable beard who is a little taller than average and keeps company with a mixture of Arabs and Pakistani security personnel.

Still, the Geek would like to imagine Osama huddled at the back of a cave, wondering what his wives are doing and wishing for one of his horses so he could feel the wind, wild and free.