Where, Oh Where has Osama Gone?

by John Thompson

September, 2001

Where, oh where has Osama gone? Oh where, oh where can he be? With his troops cut short and his sanctuary bombed, where, oh where can he be?

Since his video of December 11^th there has been no sign of the fellow. But the pale Bin Laden showed some signs of physical distress and might be wounded. He might be dead; he might have fled into Pakistan; or he might still be at large in Afghanistan. But which?

The sordid details of the fighting in Afghanistan will take time to emerge. Most of the facts about the cut-and-thrust of combat in the 1991 Gulf War only came out a year later — by which time the news media (and the public) had lost interest. Western publics may finally become aware of the savage street fighting in Mogadishu in 1993 in coming weeks when a surprisingly accurate movie on the affray is released.

Thousands of Taliban/Al Qaeda troops have been killed since early November and neither the Islamicists nor their Afghan opponents have much by way of graves registration details to wander "oe’r the bloody field and book their dead". Whenever the Islamicists tried to stand against the Alliance, Western Special Forces troops would call in B-52 strikes, smart bombs or "daisy-cutters". The mopping up was often left to Afghans, who have a long tradition of mercilessness to beaten foes. It may transpire that SAS troopers and US Rangers have stacked up a number of dead opponents too… they often do nowadays.

The bombardment of Tora Bora will have buried, burnt or vaporized hundreds of Al Qaeda troops, and the chambers of some caves are full of mangled and rotting bodies — making identification both uncertain and unpleasant. If Osama Bin Laden has been killed, his followers might not be aware of it… and there might not be much of a body to recognize if he was caught in a B-52 strike or by a Daisy-cutter’s fuel air explosion.

For all of his heroic posturing and bombastic imagery, Bin Laden might not have stayed around for the final act in Afghanistan. People who end up leading insurgent movements tend to do so for largely selfish reasons: Many are interested in the perks of power (as seems to be the case with the absent Mullah Omar with his luxury cattle pens); some are motivated by the struggle for personal survival in the currents of a revolution; and some need to feed their ego with a heroic self-image. Bin Laden appears to be in the latter category.

Most people find self-justification is easy, and ideologues are no exception to the rule. The Bin Laden who urged his followers to martyrdom and implored them to battle with the Americans is not necessarily a man who will follow his own advice. Hitler, it will be remembered, was liberal with his commands to German troops to stand fast and fight to the death, but always took great care with his own personal safety until the Soviets closed in on Berlin and he took the easy way out.

But perhaps Bin Laden has changed the conditions that allow him to "win" in his personal war with the West. The egotistical need for a heroic self-image that motivated him to commit terrorism in the first place could easily rationalize that his escape will be a "victory". As a fugitive he might rebuild his movement and still threaten the West.

Admittedly, if Bin Laden is in Pakistan he might be safe among the Pathans for a while — but where a $25 million dollar reward is beyond the imagination of most Afghans, this won’t be the case in Pakistan. The hundreds of Pakistani Pathans killed in Afghanistan this autumn might also have worn out his welcome.

Moreover, Bin Laden as a defiant warrior could have captured popular imagination in the Muslim world; but as the fugitive who abandoned his followers he will have a lot of work to do to rebuild his image even among other Fundamentalists. They may not be prepared to ever trust him again, although Osama might not believe this. Hitler was a mad optimist until the very end too.

Is Bin Laden still meandering around in Afghanistan? Perhaps, but Afghanistan’s winter mountains are no place to wander — especially with a massive array of reconnaissance elements searching for him and his entourage. Roving about still leaves him exposed to his enemies. The odds are that, if still alive, Bin Laden is taking his chances in Pakistan.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: institute@mackenzieinstitute.com

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