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Bergen believes bin Laden's hiding in a Pakistani city or Azad Kashmir
Osama Bin Laden is more likely to be hiding either in a Pakistani city or somewhere in the mountains of Azad Kashmir, according to an investigation done by Peter Bergen, a leading expert on terrorism. The results of his investigation that took him to Pakistan and Afghanistan where he conducted a large number of interviews with a cross-section of people are the basis of a long article that appears in the current issue of the American magazine Atlantic Monthly.Bergen, who is also the CNN expert on terrorism and a professor at the Johns Hopkins University, writes, "The conventional wisdom now, of course, is that tracking bin Laden down won't make much of a difference to the larger war on terrorism anyway." The movement will carry on whatever bin Laden's fate. He disagrees with that view and argues that it would be "dangerously wrong" to assume that it doesn't really matter whether he is apprehended. Bergen writes, "Finding bin Laden remains of utmost importance for three reasons. First, there is the matter of justice for the 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 attacks, and for the hundreds of other victims of Al Qaeda attacks around the world. Second, every day that bin Laden remains at liberty is a propaganda victory for Al Qaeda. Third, although bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri don't exert day-to-day control over Al Qaeda, according to Roger Cressey, a former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official, they do continue to supply 'broad strategic guidance' for the group's actions, and for those of its affiliates." Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-09-05 |
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