The Most Wanted Man In The World
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If his current hosts, the radical Islamic Taliban regime in Afghanistan, are to be believed, that's about the maximum bin Laden can personally do now. Under heavy international pressure to give their guest up, the Taliban claims to have denied him phone and fax capabilities. (He had already quit using his satellite phone because its signal can be traced.) Bin Laden has been forced to rely on human messengers. He leads a spartan life; he no longer has a comfortable camp. U.S. officials believe he lives on the move, in a sturdy Japanese pickup truck, changing sleeping locations nightly to avoid attempts on his life.
He's still able to get out his message, though, through interviews and videotapes produced for his supporters. A tape of his son's wedding last January features bin Laden reading an ode he'd written to the bombing by his supporters of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, an attack that killed 17 service members. "The pieces of the bodies of the infidels were flying like dust particles," he sang. "If you had seen it with your own eyes, your heart would have been filled with joy."
What would he say about the civilian men and women, the moms and dads, the children who died in New York City on Sept. 11? He might say, as he said to ABC News in 1998, "In today's wars, there are no morals. We believe the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets."
With reporting by Hannah Bloch/Kabul, Massimo Calabresi/Washington, Bruce Crumley/Paris, Meenakshi Ganguly/New Delhi, Scott MacLeod/Cairo, Simon Robinson/Nairobi, Douglas Waller/Washington, Rebecca Winters/New York and Rahimullah Yusufzai/Peshawar
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