US General: Bin Laden will be caught
An intense manhunt will ultimately net the United States' Public Enemy Number One, Osama bin Laden, but there is no telling how long the hunt might take, the country’s top soldier said today.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denounced bin Laden’s latest taped message, saying its barbarity was a reminder that US forces are involved in “a fight for freedom and civilisation.”
Two and a half years after their al-Qaida group organised the deadliest terror attack in history, bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are still at large and believed hiding in the craggy mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A dragnet involving thousands of troops has also failed to track down Taliban leader Mullah Omar or renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Catching the men is considered a top priority and would be an enormous boost to President George Bush ahead of the November elections in the United States - the reward for information leading to bin Laden’s capture was recently raised to $50m (€41m).
Myers, in the Afghanistan capital Kabul, insisted he has not grown frustrated at the military’s inability to locate bin Laden and his deputy, or at the terror leaders’ success at smuggling anti-American audio messages out from their hiding places.
“We will be successful against al-Qaida and their leadership, but I’m not going to put a timeline on it, because I just can’t tell you,” he said. “One or two people hiding in very tough terrain where they have either paid for their security or have sympathisers … this is very difficult work.”
Buoyed by the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the US military had boasted in January that it was sure it would catch the al-Qaida chiefs by the end of the year. It backed off those predictions last weekend.
The military has vowed a sweeping spring offensive to crush remaining Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts.
