From today’s Military.com front page:
WASHINGTON — After secret interrogations, the CIA transferred to U.S. military custody a high-level al-Qaida figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon announced Friday.
Mohammad Rahim was captured last summer in Lahore, Pakistan, according to a diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity because intelligence matters are involved. Rahim was later handed over to the CIA, which after interrogating him, turned him over to the U.S. military this week. In a message to agency employees Friday, CIA Director Michael Hayden said it was the first such transfer from his agency’s interrogation program since April 2007.
Rahim is now being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Hayden said.
“Rahim’s detention in the summer of 2007 was a blow to more than one terrorist network,” Hayden told agency employees in a memo obtained by The Associated Press. “He gave aid to al-Qaida, the Taliban and other anti-coalition militants…”
…Rahim is a close associate of bin Laden and has ties to al-Qaida organizations throughout the Middle East, according to Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman. Officials said Rahim helped arrange the al-Qaida hide-out at Tora Bora — a mountain area full of warrens used by bin Laden during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
The article focuses on the secret prison controversy, but unfortunately buries the lede by ignoring the key question raised by Rahim’s position in the al Qaeda organization. If he helped bin Laden escape Tora Bora and he is a “close associate” of the AQ leader, then why haven’t we captured bin Laden? This guy surely knows where he is, or at least has a pretty good idea of where he was. So why don’t we have the big guy?
Seems to me if they released him from CIA custody, they got what they needed out of him and he’s used up. So, a bin Laden capture on the eve of the ’08 election? Conspiracy theories abound!
– Christian
Skeptic,
Great question. I thought the same thing.
cos hes dead duh…
Hes under the control of the DoD at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Prior to his arrival at GB, he was held in CIA custody.
didn’t bush say that bin laden wasn’t a priority and wasn’t a big deal and others were actually running things and so on and so on, didn’t he release some videos with references to the surge? I could be wrong but that would negate the assertion he died in 2003
those the videos with the fella who looks remarkably unlike binny does?
I find a lot or Irony in both sides playing the game of keeping it quite that OBL is captured, for the benefit fo both sides. We get to use him as the boogey man and the other side doesn’t lose face because we have him. Oh what a tangled web we weave.
Not that I am saying we captured or killed him, but in keeping it quite, we now deny Al Qaida any opportunity to proclaim him a martyr or hero without acknowledging that we got him, then they lose more face along with the gains we have been posting lately.
If The US wants Bin Laden what they should of done from the start and I’ve already stated this since 2003. all those captured terrorist should have been put to sleep and implanted a RFID chip in their tooth or embeded on their bone. Send them back or let them go back and track them. They would eventually paint a whole picture of they organization and their movement. With a little patience and collatoral damage the whole network would be brought down. Its that simple. Sometimes I think the US does not want to catch him because it weakens our purpose of being there. Also if we did have him we could not tell anyone because terrorist would start kidnapping and executing innocent people for his release.
An “October surprise” might have made a difference in the Bush re-election 2004 campaign, but it’s hard to imagine how much difference it would make in this year’s election. The Afghanistan war is not an issue.
Twinkle Toes:
RFID chips small enough to go into a tooth have a range of about 10 to 20 feet. Not a lot of RFID trackers in the mountains of Afghanistan.
If US succeed to capture Mula Umer and Osama then there will be no justifcation for stay in Afghansitan and Iraq . US Administration does not want to finish this drama and will contineousely will make fool it peoples for long time.
There is no way Bin Ladin is held in US custody…
First, we or our allies would never capture him alive.
Second, supposing he was captured, the USG could never keep it a secret, since the political value of leaking it is too great.
Third, if he was killed or even missing, AQ would claim he was martyred– it is not a death blow or humiliation to AQ when Bin Ladin dies…in fact, it will seal his place in this movement and will not weaken it
(Although killing him would be a good thing for the US, capturing even better…but HIGHLY doubtful).
I wouldn’t believe anyone connected to the USIC would even know about it if it was true.
bin laden is confidential information, it will do good to just forget him.
Delta will never bring him out alive. He’s still over there and if they catch him, they’ll kill him. No way does Bin Laden gets the international stage a courtroom would give him. Though the orders are capture or kill, he will be caught and killed. We can live with martyrs, but he’s a walking dead man for sure.