Hunting for Osama bin Laden
By
Sarah Collerton
Two
journalists close to the story of the hunt for Osama
bin Laden are Michael Ware and Nick Bryant.
Former CNN and Time
journalist Ware is the only Westerner kidnapped by Al
Qaeda to be released alive. The Brisbane-born
reporter spent several years in Afghanistan and Iraq.
BBC journalist Bryant was the broadcaster's
Washington correspondent during the 9/11 attacks. He
was embedded with US troops in Afghanistan in 2003
and also spent time in Pakistan.
Here they share their thoughts about bin Laden's
death and the nearly decade-long manhunt for the Al
Qaeda leader.
The
operation that killed bin Laden
WARE:
It was
absolutely breathtaking, it was daring, it was
stunning. Osama bin Laden did not die with the
anonymity of an unmanned drone missile strike. What
they did was in a night-time airborne assault, they
left American bases in war-torn Afghanistan,
choppered over the worst of the worst of Pakistan's
badlands, where Al Qaeda and the various Taliban
exist and then went deep, striking into the heart of
Pakistani sovereign territory; putting boots on the
ground for the first time, at least publicly
acknowledged, since these wars began, stormed in and
took him down with kill shots to the head. Now that
is breathtaking. It could have gone wrong 1,000
different ways but they succeeded.
A
long manhunt
BRYANT: In 2003, I went [to Afghanistan and Pakistan]
with one question in my mind, 'Where is Osama bin
Laden?' I really thought we were going to be covering
this story six or seven years ago. But soon after
arriving, I did get the feeling that the trail really
had gone cold. Looking at and being in the terrain,
you can understand why: it is extraordinarily rugged.
There are an amazing number of places to hide; there
are remote communities that are very hard to get to
and on both sides of the border; the idea there is
government control is ludicrous. These are lawless
areas.
WARE:
My first and
foremost reaction was a kaleidoscope of faces in my
mind: American boys I know who are no longer with us,
countless Pakistani civilians, Afghans, Iraqis. Since
this series of conflicts began, with September 11 10
years ago, we have seen something roughly in the
order of 10,000 combat deaths and hundreds of
thousands of civilian deaths.
The
US soldier who killed bin Laden
WARE:
I would
earnestly hope that we recognise his right to remain
anonymous. He would be a targeted, wanted, marked
man, and his family, for the rest of his days.
There's no amount of security that would ever be
enough. The special operating forces community would
be wrapping around him to maintain that anonymity.
I've been in these sorts of situations; there can be
a lot of lead in the air, so perhaps they don't know
precisely who the trigger-puller was.
Elite
troops
BRYANT: We weren't allowed to go out with the Special
Forces guys because the missions were just so
secretive, but occasionally you'd find yourself in
helicopters with them. They were a purist bunch -
most US forces are pretty friendly towards
journalists, but the Special Forces guys hated us
being there. They were very mindful of their
'special' status. For instance, they were allowed to
grow long beards which allowed them to merge in with
the locals more in their undercover work, they were
allowed to wear whatever clothes they wanted to wear
and a lot of them used to wear Afghan clothes. They
operated very independently, very secretly and very
idiosyncratically.
The
effect on Al Qaeda
WARE:
It's
certainly a great symbolic body blow to their
organisation, but it doesn't affect their operation
virtually at all. The day before his killing, I can
assure you plots were well in development, if not
already into execution, and those plots remain
untouched today, as does the senior command
structure. Ten years ago, Osama stepped out of the
chain of command. We'll have to wait to see [a new
figurehead] emerge from the argy bargy of internal Al
Qaeda politics.
BRYANT: Symbolically it's very huge, in terms of the
morale within militant Islam, and the fear now is
that not only did the Americans get bin Laden, but a
treasure trove of intelligence from that compound.
The fact that Osama is dead will have an impact, but
the idea that you chop of the head of Al Qaeda and
you kill the body of Al Qaeda is nonsensical.
Operationally Al Qaeda is still strong in other parts
of the world; they've acted independently for the
past seven or eight years.
What
now?
WARE:
It would be
foolish to not be braced for some kind of Al Qaeda
response. However, if you have travel planned
overseas, take it. Just be vigilant, as you should
have been before Osama's killing. By and large, the
global situation, the Australian situation hasn't
changed. It was what it was before he was dead, it
continues to be so now. There will be attacks to
come, we just don't know when and where.
BRYANT: It obviously raises the question of how
reliable a partner Pakistan has been in the past 10
years. [Where bin Laden was killed] is 20 miles away
from the capital Islamabad - it's right next to a big
military academy. It's one of those parts of Pakistan
where the central government does have far more
control than anywhere else, so where he was found did
come as a surprise.