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The Bin Laden Operation: Tapping Human Intelligence
Since May 2, when U.S. special operations forces crossed the
Afghan-Pakistani border and killed Osama bin Laden, international media
have covered the raid from virtually every angle. The United States and
Pakistan have also squared off over the U.S. violation of Pakistan’s
sovereign territory and Pakistan’s possible complicity in hiding the al
Qaeda leader. All this surface-level discussion, however, largely
ignores almost 10 years of intelligence development in the hunt for bin
Laden.
While the cross-border nighttime raid deep into Pakistan was a daring
and daunting operation, the work to find the target — one person out of
180 million in a country full of insurgent groups and a population
hostile to American activities on its soil — was a far greater
challenge. For the other side, the challenge of hiding the world’s most
wanted man from the world’s most funded intelligence apparatus created a
clandestine shell game that probably involved current or former
Pakistani intelligence officers as well as competing intelligence
services. The details of this struggle will likely remain classified for
decades. Read more »
