DTN News: No Reliable Bin Laden information In Years, Says Robert Gates

DTN News: No Reliable Bin Laden information In Years, Says Robert Gates *Source: DTN News / Telegraph.co.uk By Alex Spillius in Washington (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON, USA- December 7, 2009: The United States has had no reliable intelligence reports on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden for years, Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, has said.President Barack Obama conspicuously omitted to mention bin Laden when he unveiled his plan for Afghanistan last week

Asked whether he could confirm recently a claim by a Taliban detainee that the al-Qaeda leader had been seen earlier this year in Afghanistan, Mr Gates replied flatly: "No." "We don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did we'd go get him," Mr Gates told ABC's This Week. He added that the best estimate was that bin Laden was somewhere in North Waziristan, a densely mountainous tribal area in Pakistan where the "government has not had a presence for some time". Gen James Jones, the US national security adviser, said that the terror leader may sometimes move across the border into Afghanistan. Various reports, all of limited credibility, have in the past few years placed the man behind the September 11 attacks in the Kurram agency bordering North Waziristan, and the Chitral area. President Barack Obama conspicuously omitted to mention bin Laden when he unveiled his plan for Afghanistan last week. After eight years of failing to come even close to finding the terror leader, the administration has chosen to play down the importance of hunting him down. It however draws some comfort from the fact that, if bin Laden is in North Waziristan, he has been forced into a corner, albeit a corner of 1,817 sq miles, that prevents him running training camps and makes providing material support to terrorists harder. Catching bin Laden was a major reason for the Washington's invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. A bounty of $50 million for information leading to his killing or capture is still on offer. But members of the Obama administration generally only mention his name when asked by the media. Under questioning from CNN yesterday, Gen Jones made a half-hearted commitment to invigorate the hunt for the fugitive. "We are going to have to get after that," he said. A Senate report released last week said that the Saudi Arabian national was "within the grasp" of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements.