Can Bin Laden Be Caught?

(3 of 3)

The infiltrators sheltered in a small compound of three houses just outside Damadola. Shortly after 3 a.m. on Jan. 13, locals say, several missiles fired from Predators crashed into the compound, practically obliterating the houses. According to news reports, Pakistani officials initially said it was possible that al-Zawahiri had been killed, then backed away from the claim. Villagers told journalists who arrived at the scene that 18 civilians had died (the number was later revised down to 13); they denied that any bodies had been removed or that any foreigners had been in the compound. But some Pakistani intelligence officials began telling media outlets last week they believe as many as four leading terrorists, including al-Zawahiri's son-in-law and Abu Khabab al-Masri, a top al-Qaeda bombmaker, died in the strike. The U.S. is still uncertain if DNA was recovered from the scene to allow experts to positively identify any terrorists killed there or how the IDs were made. Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told TIME late last week that so far investigators have recovered only bodies of civilians, "but our security forces are there in large numbers to get the facts. These things just cannot evaporate and disappear, if there is anything."

Although the missile strike provoked a round of protests in Pakistan's tribal areas that forced President Pervez Musharraf to distance his government from the operation, cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan in the hunt for bin Laden has quietly deepened. A Peshawar-based Pakistani intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity says Washington has an understanding with Islamabad that allows the U.S. to strike within Pakistan's border regions--providing the Americans have actionable intelligence and especially if the Pakistanis won't or can't take firm action. Pakistan's caveat is that it would formally protest such strikes to deflect domestic criticism. Some ranking Pakistani officials deny such an agreement exists.

The territory in which bin Laden may be hiding remains forbidding to outsiders. In pockets of Pakistan's borderlands, a resurgent Taliban has begun to impose its extreme brand of Islamic law, including a ban on music and the Internet, and the summary execution of criminals. Some counterterrorism experts, though, are cautiously optimistic that the turmoil in al-Qaeda's high command they hope was caused by the strike in Damadola may force its leaders to expose themselves. "You got to presume that all the al-Qaeda guys are asking each other who got smoked," says a former U.S. intelligence official. "When they stick their heads up to see who got whacked, it presents opportunities."

While the hope of finding al-Qaeda's bosses anytime soon remains just that--hope--the hunters have shown indications that they may be closer to picking up their targets' scent. A Pakistani intelligence official says Pakistani intelligence agents and CIA drones are searching the mountainsides for the second group that crossed from Afghanistan. In the message delivered last week, bin Laden signaled he would not allow himself to be captured alive. "I swore that I will not die except free, despite the bitter taste of death," he said. On that much, both bin Laden and his pursuers seem to agree: one way or another, his end will come.