UPI hunts in Pakistan for an interview with Bin Laden

[ECH1969]

NEAR MIRANSHAH, North Waziristan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Pakistan. More than a year of intermittent talks with Osama bin Laden's clandestine network in Pakistan led to a 750-mile journey through territory forbidden to foreigners and two of the country's four provinces.

The UPI team, in native kameez shalwar dress, included a Pakistani media consultant and personal friend, who asked his name be withheld pending a meeting with bin Laden; a driver; our security chief; and a constantly changing member of the secret network, as we moved from one relay point to the next.

It soon became clear the operatives only knew where to meet us and where to hand us over to the next relay. The ultimate destination was a meeting and an interview with bin Laden. The last two days had been described as a two-day uphill walk.

Veterans of the anti-U.S. insurgency campaign in Iraq, locals told our escorts, have been training al Qaeda veterans in roadside bomb-making and suicide bomber techniques. It is our judgment at the end of this long trip, ISI knows exactly where he is. Escorts near our final driving destination said bin Laden has a portable dialysis machine and generator and gerrycans of fuel and water.

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050924-100322-5441r_page2.htm

[Old and In the Way]

1. Hunting the elusive Osama.........

reminds me of the hunt for the Abominable Snowman....

[tocqueville]

2. W Times is a Moon rag

they'll write anything, no matters what facts are. There is nothing new in the article, only wild speculation.

[ECH1969]

3. Duh

But, it does show that even UPI can tell that the Pakistanis are playing us, taking our tax money that is supposed to go to finding Bin Laden while doing nothing about him.

It actually shows our government is being played something we have known for some time.

This would actually be a very effective political weapon to use in 2006 if the dems had the balls to use it as would Bush's support of the Saudis.

[tocqueville]

4. no argument about the Pakistanis double standards...

as I said all this "information" is not really news. Then that OBL travels around with a portable dialysis gear is only speculation.
Osama will never been interviewed by others than his own produced videos. He would never take the risk to be hit by a drone.

[HereSince1628]

5. We keep hearing Osama needs dialysis, is this true?

Because I am sure hemodialysis requires supplies (anyone know what they are?) that generally are not available in isolated mountain caves.

I am always impressed by the idea that a person needing regular dialysis would be hiding in a primitive shelter carved into a mountain. If bin Laden is living in a cave it must be one of those very modern troglogeodedic structures that includes the capacity to produce highly purified water that is required for dialysis. Water impurities in hemodialysis can be life threatening.

If bin Laden has kidney disease that requires treatment by dialysis that he provides by a personal hemodialysis unit I'd expect Osama to be living in a comfortable clean house in a pleasant neighborhood in a city or town where supplies necessary to support dialysis are available and traffic in these items would go unnoticed.