WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden, who has thrust himself into the American presidential race in its waning days, is probably still hiding in the rugged border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the U.S. military.
It was through the snow-capped mountains in that region that bin Laden narrowly escaped three years ago, frustrating a military operation that has been a campaign issue for months.
Democratic candidate John Kerry repeated charges yesterday that the Bush administration bungled the raid in the Tora Bora mountains to capture bin Laden in December 2001. Retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who was the overall commander of the effort and is a vocal supporter of President Bush, continues to defend his use of Afghan fighters rather than calling in additional U.S. forces to seal off escape routes.
Some defense and intelligence analysts say that even if bin Laden is captured or killed, it will not dampen a fundamentalist Muslim terrorist campaign that continues to spread and target Americans. Bin Laden, they argue, has become a symbol of the campaign, much as Che Guevara, the Argentina-born Cuban revolutionary, inspired young Marxist rebels for more than a generation.
Army Maj. Scott Nelson told reporters in Afghanistan yesterday that the al-Qaida leader is likely still along a corridor that stretches 1,500 miles. "He is operating probably in the Afghanistan or Pakistan border area," Nelson said. "We are not exactly sure; if we knew exactly where he was, we would be there in a moment."
Bin Laden has been the specter hanging over the presidential race all year.
Bush has charged that his Democratic opponent's votes in the Senate on defense spending, together with his focus on allied cooperation, show that he is not strong enough to deal with the terrorist mastermind. Kerry, for his part, said that the Bush administration mishandled the operation in Tora Bora and that the president's "rush to war" in Iraq created a diversion from the real enemy: bin Laden and other terrorists who are targeting America.
Yesterday, at a rally in Appleton, Wis., Kerry once more returned to that theme, saying, "As I have said for two years now, when Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us."
