It's true that CIA and Pakistani agents have worked together to nab al-Qaeda senior aides such as Binalshibh and Palestinian bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan's big cities. But the tribal zone is a different story—a sensitive region. U.S. commandos, now mostly confined to the Afghan side of the border, are rarely allowed to raid possible mountain hideouts on the Pakistan side, whether by themselves or with Pakistani officers. Under the current delicate political climate for the government of Musharraf, say senior U.S. and Pakistani officials, that would be a mission impossible. Many of the deeply religious clans there sympathize with bin Laden and are bound by tribal honor to shelter fugitives from the Pakistani police and army. The U.S. government's $27 million reward for bin Laden has little sway here; villagers don't trust the Pakistani government to cut them in on their share of the reward. They're just as suspicious of members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, who they believe might be collecting al-Qaeda payoffs and would kill them if they ratted. "We do have information about al-Qaeda," says a tribal chieftain in Quetta, "but we don't have a safe way of passing this on to the Americans."

In Pakistan's general elections on Oct. 10, pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda­friendly religious parties won control over border governments in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier province. "If we start sending American troops on patrol into the tribal areas, we're going to have dead Americans," says a State Department official. Pakistani officials don't believe they would be any more successful. "Ninety percent of the time when we go after someone in there, we fail," says a senior police officer in Quetta. "Our intelligence in these areas is never any good."

Not everyone, however, believes the Pakistani government is helpless. U.S. Army officers in Afghanistan, along with U.N. and Afghan intelligence officials, are worried that al-Qaeda enclaves have been set up on the Pakistani side of the border under protection from the country's Frontier Corps militia, which Islamabad used during the Taliban era to patrol the tribal regions. "It's our assessment they're assisting al-Qaeda," says Major Mike Richardson, an operations officer with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne, which patrols the Afghan side. Some intelligence analysts in the region and in Washington also suspect that dissident elements within Pakistan's ISI are still sympathetic to the Taliban. "I wouldn't rule it out," says a senior U.S. intelligence official. "There are some rogue types in those organizations." An Afghan intelligence officer says he's sure "ISI has made safe passage into the tribal areas for these criminals."

American investigators are trying to persuade Musharraf to let them expand their bin Laden search into the tribal belt, but the Pakistanis have "a different agenda," says a Western diplomat in Islamabad. "The Americans' aim, obviously, is to get the bad guys." The Pakistani strategy is to extend the government's influence in these lawless areas by winning over the local chieftains, a kind of mini­nation building. That's why Musharraf is wary of mishaps like the one in which two U.S. missiles recently strayed inside the Pakistani border and landed a few hundred yards from a tribal militia garrison. The Bush Administration, for its part, maintains that it's "still pleased" with Musharraf's help.

But Musharraf said he believed bin Laden had died of a kidney ailment. And when he's not declaring bin Laden dead, he has joined a long list of U.S. officials who have been insisting that the terrorist leader was not the ultimate prize. "We've always said that al-Qaeda did not depend on Osama bin Laden," Rumsfeld said last week. Yet the Defense chief also acknowledged "that tape was intended to be a very clear threat." In time, we will learn how crucial bin Laden's existence is to al-Qaeda's. But in symbolic terms, the value of getting him—dead or alive—remains incalculable.

—With reporting by Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson, Michael Duffy, Elaine Shannon, Mark Thompson and Michael Weisskopf/Washington; Tim McGirk/ Islamabad; and Michael Ware/Kabul

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