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 sama
bin Laden has obtained a fatwa authorizing his suicide in
case of capture. He was forced to take this extraordinary step because
suicide is expressly forbidden in Islam. This timely bit of information
was relayed by Mullah Abdel Aziz, an imam at a Kandahar mosque who
spoke to bin Laden last September. The logic of the fatwa
is that the capture of bin Laden or his men would lead to confessions
that would be damaging to the jihad against the crusaders
and Jews. Suicide would forestall this and presumably create martyrs
to the cause. Aziz said that bin Laden and his men did not appear
afraid of death, and would "resist capture to the very end."
Setting aside
for a moment the question of what the September 11 suicide hijackers
were thinking when they offended their faith, it's good to finally
see a fatwa we can all get behind. Despite the president's
statement that bin Laden should be brought in dead or alive, it
is hard to see the value in the latter option. I have already written
about the problems associated with a bin Laden trial (see "
Bring on the Dream Team! ") and won't repeat them other
than to say that a trial would be a very bad idea. Bin Laden is
someone best considered in the context of another Old West saying:
Some varmints just need killin'.
Osama will
be on the run soon, or he should be. He shouldn't feel safe where
he is. A cave complex, no matter how comfortable, no matter how
intricate, no matter how deep, is still a cave. It is stationary,
offers limited opportunities for escape, and eventually it will
be found and destroyed. There are numerous technical means for achieving
this at allied disposal. For example, as the weather grows colder,
thermal imaging will be more effective. Warm spots — say from
heaters or exhausts — will show brightly against cold stone.
Air vents carved deep into the interior of the cave complexes, invisible
to the naked eye, will stand out to sensors — they will be
perfect targets for bunker-busting munitions. Or fuel-air explosives
could be used to suck the air out of the caves, or to collapse their
entrances. Maybe the allies will have to take out all the caves
— this can be done, they aren't infinite in number after all
— or perhaps human intelligence will pinpoint which cavern
is bin Laden's evil lair. With the hundreds of Taliban defections
and an unlimited stoolie fund, that information should soon be forthcoming.
But that assumes
bin Laden survives long enough to face allied attack. He will probably
be taken care of much sooner. The Saudi terrorist and his al Qaeda
network may have served a practical purpose to the Taliban in the
past, but those days are gone. Bin Laden's Taliban support and protection
were based on a shared belief system, common enemies, and large
infusions of cash. Now the money is drying up, and he has no ready
access to the accounts we haven't yet found. The common enemies
have occupied the Afghan capital and are knocking at the gates of
Kandahar. And the shared belief system? It is still there, probably
as strong as ever, but in the terrorist world it's not the type
of thing you'd want to bet your life on. Bin Laden is a marked man.
He is the reason the allies have turned their attention to Afghanistan,
he is the reason the Taliban's enemies occupy most of the country.
He is worth more dead than alive, and in Afghanistan that is a poor
predicament to be in.
Some members
of the Taliban — those who have not yet defected — may
begin thinking that their best chance for clemency would be to do
the allies a favor and remove the cause of their misery. In fact
they may have something to fear themselves if they don't act. The
upper middle strata of the Taliban (and even al Qaeda), the people
who implemented the orders, may find themselves targets for removal.
They know where the bodies are buried, and I mean that literally.
They are the witnesses to bin Laden's crimes. They also know where
he is hiding, what his possible escape plans are, and other valuable
information. While they live, he is in danger. Bodies may begin
appearing the same way they did in Serbia when officers from the
same level of the Milosevic regime started turning up dead as the
dictator's grip on power began to slip and he began to cover his
tracks. Mullah Omar might be pondering a similar purge, though one
report has it that his friends in Pakistani military intelligence
will give him sanctuary in Pakistan. Whether that should make his
underlings breathe any easier is anybody's guess.
Bin Laden may
also try to escape to Pakistan, or elsewhere. He could shave his
beard, change his clothes, blend in somehow. After all how many
six foot five remarkably charismatic and eminently recognizable
Arabs are there in Afghanistan? He could try to sneak out among
refugees, some of which are still leaving Afghanistan as others
flood back in. Pakistan has recently tightened border security in
the southwest because of threats from Taliban fighters seeking sanctuary.
The Taliban at the border were threatening to kill journalists who
were filming refugee families — makes one wonder who they might
not want caught on tape.
At this point
bin Laden's best move would be to surrender. He could attempt to
force a trial and use it as a global platform to espouse his views.
He could probably obtain a venue in which the death penalty would
not be imposed, or failing that, he could have the martyrdom he
allegedly does not fear. The alternative to surrender is swift and
certain death. But the problem with surrendering is, to whom would
he give up? Certainly not the Northern Alliance; at best he would
face a pro-forma tribunal before he was decapitated and his head
paraded through Kabul on a pike. At worst, torture, beheading, then
the pike. Maybe he could find some allied commandos, U.S. or British,
people who unlike bin Laden observe the Geneva Convention. But what
are the odds he would be allowed to get close enough to surrender?
Perhaps he is wired with dynamite — maybe he would want to
take a few "crusaders" with him in a last glorious act
of martyrdom. If you were a special-operations soldier in Afghanistan,
would you take the chance?
Hint.
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