Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave, al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort

Many people believe that United States intelligence services are creating Osama Bin Laden statements and videos to justify the so-called war on terror.  Some question whether Osama Bin Laden is dead or alive.

For over a decade, Osama Bin Laden has managed to evade the world's superpower and the biggest manhunt in history.  Numerous audio and video statements purporting to be from him have been released, but their authenticity has been continually questioned.

Bruce Riedel, who chaired President Barack Obama's Afghanistan/Pakistan policy review, and who has seen the intelligence on Osama Bin Laden, says the trail has not so much gone cold as "frozen over".

"We don't have a clue where he is," he says.

Could it all be a 'Western conspiracy'?  The veracity of all of the videos is questioned by David Ray Griffin, a former theology professor and member of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

"None of them can be proven to be authentic," he says. "At least three of them can be shown to be almost certainly fake.  "And if somebody is faking Bin Laden videos, then that leads to the suspicion that all the videos and audio tapes have been faked."

He also maintains that the Osama Bin Laden figure looks very different to previous footage - fatter, with shorter fingers, and that he is even writing with the wrong hand.  Most of Bin Laden's statements are audio only. Only two that show Osama Bin Laden speaking have been issued since 2001.  Griffin claims both are fakes.

Saturday CNN reported that Osama Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding close to each other in houses in northwest Pakistan, but are not together, according to a senior NATO official.  The official said the general region where Osama Bin Laden is likely to have moved around in recent years ranges from the mountainous Chitral area in the far northwest near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley which neighbors Afghanistan's Tora Bora, one of the Taliban strongholds during the U.S. invasion in 2001.

"Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave," said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the intelligence matters involved.

Rather, al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services, the official said.

So what are we to believe?  Both sides appear to have valid and contrasting arguments.  Do you believe Osama Bin Laden is dead or alive?  Do you believe he is being protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services?  Does it really matter?

 

 

Video courtesy of CNN

Picture of Osama Bin Laden courtesy of Google images

©2010 by Lloyd Cope for Gather.com  All rights reserved