"One of the priority tasks of the reshuffled ISI is going to be to pressurise the Taliban to throw Bin Laden out of Afghanistan. Nawaz Sharif is under tremendous pressure from the US to make the Taliban moderate its anti-woman policies and to hand over Bin Laden to the US, failing which the US reportedly wants the ISI and the IB to co-operate with the CIA and the FBI in having him captured from his hide-out in Kandahar and flown to the US in a Noriega-style operation. Nawaz is apparently in a dilemma. Bin Laden is a hero figure to large sections of Pashtoons, not only of Afghanistan, but also of Pakistan.

Any suspicion that he colluded with the US in the capture of Bin Laden could turn the Pashtoon public opinion in general and the Islamic extremists in particular against him. At the same time, failure to act on the repeated US requests could delay the lifting of the US sanctions against Pakistan even if he gives satisfaction to the US on the non-proliferation issue. Pakistani authorities, therefore, seem to be trying to explore the possibility of helping Bin Laden to escape to the Southern Philippines where the Abu Sayaaf group might give him shelter in the territory under its control or to Chechnya. No Government of any Islamic State would accept him lest they fall foul of the US. The only way out, in Pakistani calculation, is to help him to flee to a country where Muslim insurgent elements control some territory."

-Assessment in our paper of December 18,1998, titled "Revamp of Pakistani Intelligence".

For nearly a year now, the US authorities have been pressing Pakistan to help them in mounting a Noriega-style operation to have Bin Laden whisked out of his hide-out in Kandahar and flown to the US for interrogation and prosecution.

After the bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August last year, large sections of the Pakistani press were feverishly speculating about the imminence of a helicopter-borne US raid into Kandahar to capture Bin Laden and take him away.

Instead, the US retaliation came in the form of Cruise missile attacks on some of the training camps of Bin Laden’s organisation and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in Afghan territory. The attacks were not as successful as hoped for by US officials.

On the night of the Cruise missile attacks, Gen. Joseph Ralston, Vice-Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has reportedly been closely involved in the planning of the operation to capture Bin Laden, paid a lightning visit to Islamabad and dined with Gen.Jehangir Karamat, the then Chief of the Army Staff. It was given out by the Pakistani and the US authorities that Pakistan had no prior intimation of the Cruise missile attacks and that Ralston’s visit was to tell the Pakistani authorities that the missiles had been fired by the US Navy, to avoid any panic in Pakistan under the mistaken impression that they had been fired by India.

However, critics of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan had been alleging that Pakistan was privy to the bombings much before the Cruise missiles were launched and that the real purpose of Ralston’s presence in Pakistan was to ensure that there was no last-minute co-ordination problem.

The Taliban authorities, who had initially imposed movement and communications restrictions on Bin Laden after the missile attacks, subsequently removed them, thereby enabling him to again contact the international press, directly through the satellite telephone as well as indirectly through Peshawar-based Pakistani journalists, and utter threats against the US. These threats became more hysterical after the US-UK bombings of Iraq in December.

Despite Nawaz’s revamping of the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau, his hand-picked chiefs of these organisations were unable to prevent Bin Laden from using the Peshawar-based journalists to utter threats against the US and to persuade the Taliban Amir, Mullah Omar, to expel Bin Laden from Afghanistan. Pakistan’s demand for expelling Bin Laden was supported by a section of the Taliban leaders based in Kabul, but Mullah Omar remained defiant in his refusal to do so.

It was in this context that the "Guardian" of the UK, quoting US intelligence and anti-Saddam Hussain political exile sources, reported in the first week of February that Farouk Hijazi, Iraq’s Ambassador to Turkey, who, according to the "Guardian", belongs to the Iraqi intelligence, had visited Kandahar in the last week of December,1998, and conveyed to Bin Laden an offer of shelter in Iraq in return for the assistance of his organisation in Iraq’s campaign against the US and Saudi Arabia.

Since then, similar reports of the likelihood of Bin Laden shifting his headquarters to Iraq had been circulating, most of them apparently originating from the US intelligence community.

During the visit to Pakistan in the first week of February by Strobe Talbott, the US Deputy Secretary of State, his delegation included not only Gen. Ralston, but also reportedly senior CIA and FBI officers handling the Bin Laden operation. While Ralston accompanied Talbott on his visit to New Delhi too, which preceded his visit to Islamabad, the intelligence officers were believed to have directly flown to Islamabad and joined the Talbott delegation there.

While it was given out by the US officials that the purpose of the inclusion of Ralston was to discuss the possibility of the resumption of the normal interactions of the US armed forces with their Indian and Pakistani counterparts, it is believed that another purpose was to again press the Pakistani authorities to give clearance for a joint operation to capture Bin Laden.

In addition to the non-proliferation question, the Bin Laden issue also figured prominently in the discussions of Talbott , his No.2, Karl Inderfurth, Assistant Secretary of State, and Ralston in Islamabad.

On February 1, Maulvi Jalil Akhund, the Taliban’s Deputy Foreign Minister, was flown to Islamabad from Kandahar in a special plane. He met Nawaz Sharif, Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, and then Inderfurth, reportedly at Aziz’s residence.

Nawaz had also presided over a high-level meeting attended, amongst others, by Gen. Pervez Musharaf, the chief of the army staff, and Lt. Gen.Ziauddin, the new Director-General of the ISI, to discuss about Bin Laden

During the stay of the Talbott delegation, Inderfurth also visited Peshawar and reportedly sought the understanding and co-operation of the moderate, anti-Taliban Pashtoon leaders in the USA’s efforts to bring Bin Laden to justice.

It was reported that the US officials made clear to their Pakistani and Afghan interlocutors the USA’s determination to capture Bin Laden and bring him to justice with their co-operation, if possible, and without it, if left with no other option.

Initially, Maulvi Akhund and other Taliban leaders remained as defiant as ever in their refusal to hand over Bin Laden either to the US or to Saudi Arabia, but as fresh speculation flared up in Pakistan about the likelihood of a new US attack on Afghanistan, including a possible raid on Kandahar itself to capture Bin Laden, the Taliban authorities re-imposed the movement and communications restrictions on Bin Laden.

Subsequently, they announced that while they would not betray Bin Laden and expel or extradite him, if he wanted to leave Afghanistan on his own, they would allow him to leave. Since February 13, Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders have been claiming that Bin Laden has disappeared from Afghanistan.

Mohammed Tayyab, a Taliban spokesman, told journalists at Kandahar on February 13: "He has disappeared. We didn’t ask him to leave. We don’t know where he is."

Presuming that the Taliban’s claim that Bin Laden is no longer in Afghanistan is correct, there are five places where he could have found fresh shelter: the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, Southern Philippines, Chechnya, Yemen and Iraq.

The Pakistan Government’s control over the FATA is very weak and the inhabitants of this area are quite loyal to him. However, the US might find it much easier to mount an operation in FATA than in Kandahar.

While admitting past contacts with and financial assistance from Bin Laden, the Islamic extremists of Southern Philippines have recently denied any present links with him, thereby distancing themselves from reports of a likelihood of his fleeing to Southern Philippines

His ability to get across to Chechnya undetected and un intercepted by the US and Russia is poor. He is of Yemeni origin with many relatives and supporters in Yemen, but the attitude of the local Government to him would be uncertain.

This leaves, for the present, only Iraq where he might be welcomed and helped in order to use him and his set-up in Iraq's stepped- up campaign against Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the US. If it turns out to be correct that he has fled to Iraq, he could not have gone there, or for that matter, anywhere else, without the connivance of the Pakistani authorities.

In 1996, the Pakistani authorities had allowed him to go to Jalalabad from Sudan through Peshawar. Without felicitation by the ISI, it would have been almost impossible for him to fly out.

There has been some speculation of his having crossed over to Iran. This is doubtful because of his close association with the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba of Pakistan which has been responsible for the deaths of many Iranian officials in Pakistan in recent years. Moreover, the Iranian Balochs, on the Iranian side of the border, though predominantly Sunni like the Taliban leaders and Bin Laden himself (a Wahabi), are strongly anti-Pashtoon .

There is one other possibility, which may sound far-fetched now, but cannot be entirely ruled out. Bin Laden may not have escaped at all. As they did in the case of Ramzi Yousuf , one of the accused in the New York World Trade Centre bombing, and Mir Aimal Kansi, who killed two CIA officers, the Pakistani agencies might have themselves captured and handed over Bin Laden to the US authorities or helped the CIA and the FBI in capturing him.

Since this could create a strong public reaction against the Taliban and Pakistan, it may not be announced now. After a few days, it may be announced that US agencies intercepted and captured Bin Laden while he was fleeing to a third country, which version would enable the Taliban and Pakistan to escape, in the eyes of the Pashtoons, the odium of having betrayed a man who had devoted nearly two decades of his life for helping the Pashtoons.