Posted on 03/05/2004 6:56:33 PM PST by aculeus
The United States is preparing a huge high-tech surveillance operation against Osama bin Laden, in case he breaks cover in the face of an imminent manhunt involving thousands of Pakistani and American troops.
US commanders and intelligence chiefs are lining up an array of spy satellites, U2 spy planes, Predator drones, and ground-scattered listening devices and sensors to detect vehicle movements, Bush administration officials told CNN television.
The United States has block-booked satellite capacity to handle the mass of data expected from the surveillance effort concentrated on the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After a two-year manhunt without success, some senior US officers are predicting that bin Laden will be caught this year, citing an increase in the quality and quantity of intelligence information about the whereabouts of the terrorist leader.
Pakistani forces have been ordered in large numbers into the lawless tribal belts near the border, to form one half of a pincer movement against bin Laden. US forces, including special forces and CIA paramilitaries from the top secret Task Force 121, are to form the other half from the Afghan side.
"We are putting the pieces in place to throw the net over him," one official said.
U2 spy planes, equipped to take pictures, radar images and intercept communications, will be flying over the area within days, at a height of 70,000 feet.
They will be supplemented with lower flying Predator unmanned drones, some of them equipped with Hellfire anti-tank missiles, which have been used to deadly effect in the past against suspect convoys.
Ground sensors may also be placed along mountain passes to listen for moving vehicles.
The top US commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen John Abizaid, attempted to play down the chances of an imminent capture, saying: "Of course you've heard and seen in the press that Osama bin Laden is surrounded, we have him cornered and we know where he is, et cetera. And of course, we don't know that."
Gen Abizaid also repeated the public insistence of both Islamabad and Washington that there are no US forces inside Pakistan - a highly sensitive issue that could cause an explosive reaction in the country.
There have been allegations in Washington, however, that Pakistan's president, Pervaiz Musharraf, has struck a deal with the Bush administration to allow US forces into his country to hunt bin Laden.
In return, the United States has supposedly turned a blind eye to Gen Musharraf's decision to pardon Dr A Q Khan, the state-sponsored scientist accused of selling nuclear weapons to rogue nations across the globe.
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