Osama turning 50 in freedom

KABUL: Had things gone as US President George W. Bush wanted, Osama bin Laden would have been taken in "dead or alive" five years ago as the Taliban regime collapsed in Afghanistan. But on Saturday, the world's most wanted terrorist will in all likelihood mark his 50th birthday as a free man.

Despite a massive manhunt since he was believed to have fled to mountains straddling the border with Pakistan in late 2001, not to mention a US bounty of $25 million on his head, the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist network remained at large. And, if the Taliban insurgents' top military commander, Mullah Dadullah, is to be believed, bin Laden is still alive.

"We know he is still alive. He is not yet martyred," Dadullah said last week in an interview with Britain's Channel 4 television.

There are some indications he might be right. In the event of bin Laden's death, his cohorts would certainly have proclaimed him a martyr who had evaded capture by his enemies to the bitter end.

And US authorities would scarcely have failed to parade a body or a captured bin Laden in video footage before placing him on trial as they did with Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

But while there have been no recent video releases to prove the Saudi is still alive, earlier images of bin Laden are indelibly engrained on the global consciousness: bearded, tall - 1.96 metres by Interpol's calculation - turbaned, often toting a rifle and undeniably mesmeric.

Born as the 17th child of a Saudi construction entrepreneur, bin Laden was adept at evading capture even before the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the US and the ensuing military onslaught against his Taliban protectors in Afghanistan.

In 1998, he called upon Muslims worldwide to kill citizens of the US, which ironically was the country that helped set him on the path he follows today.

He received extensive US support as a co-organiser of armed resistance against the Soviets during their 1979-1988 occupation of Afghanistan.

At the end of the 1980s, Al Qaeda emerged from bin Laden's network and spawned terrorist cells that carried out numerous devastating strikes against the US and other targets around the world.

The terrorist mastermind has also been at the receiving end, surviving an assassination attempt in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in 1996 and a US missile strike in Afghanistan in 1998.

The invasion of Afghanistan by US-led coalition forces in 2001 toppled the Taliban, who had refused to hand bin Laden to the US to answer for the hijacked jetliner attacks on New York and Washington.

It is widely believed that bin Laden and many of his fighters then withdrew to strongholds in the mountainous Tora Bora region near the Pakistani border before the trail went cold.

Several senior Al Qaeda members have since been captured, but their loyalty under interrogation has remained unswerving and their master has stayed at liberty.

Speculation is still rife that bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan's remote tribal belt, where US intelligence agencies said Al Qaeda is not only rebuilding itself but running operations in other parts of the world.

The leadership of Afghanistan and Pakistan denied that he is on their territory but are unable to prove it while some US officials tell another story.

According to ABC News television in the United States, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is moving additional manpower and equipment into Pakistan to find bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, unnamed officials said.

"Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct," one told ABC, adding, "We are very much increasing our efforts there."

People familiar with the CIA operation said undercover officers with paramilitary training have been ordered into Pakistan's border area with Afghanistan. Pakistan, meanwhile, rejected any form of foreign incursion into its territory.

While his location is unclear, so is the role bin Laden now plays in Al Qaeda. Some Western experts said they believe he has become more of a symbolic figure of Islamist resistance and terrorism rather than a direct organiser of attacks.

But providing he is alive, one thing is sure: After years of special forces operations, spy missions, surveillance drone flights and billions of dollars spent, the elusive birthday boy remains an embarrassing thorn in the side of the world's last superpower, the United States.