Wanted: Dead -It’s good to finally see a fatwa we can all get behind

Osama bin Laden has obtained a fatwa authorizing his suicide in case of capture. He was forced to take this extraordinary step because suicide is expressly forbidden in Islam. This timely bit of information was relayed by Mullah Abdel Aziz, an imam at a Kandahar mosque who spoke to bin Laden last September. The logic of the fatwa is that the capture of bin Laden or his men would lead to confessions that would be damaging to the jihad against the crusaders and Jews. Suicide would forestall this and presumably create martyrs to the cause. Aziz said that bin Laden and his men did not appear afraid of death, and would "resist capture to the very end."

Setting aside for a moment the question of what the September 11 suicide hijackers were thinking when they offended their faith, it's good to finally see a fatwa we can all get behind. Despite the president's statement that bin Laden should be brought in dead or alive, it is hard to see the value in the latter option. I have already written about the problems associated with a bin Laden trial (see " Bring on the Dream Team! ") and won't repeat them other than to say that a trial would be a very bad idea. Bin Laden is someone best considered in the context of another Old West saying: Some varmints just need killin'.

Osama will be on the run soon, or he should be. He shouldn't feel safe where he is. A cave complex, no matter how comfortable, no matter how intricate, no matter how deep, is still a cave. It is stationary, offers limited opportunities for escape, and eventually it will be found and destroyed. There are numerous technical means for achieving this at allied disposal. For example, as the weather grows colder, thermal imaging will be more effective. Warm spots — say from heaters or exhausts — will show brightly against cold stone. Air vents carved deep into the interior of the cave complexes, invisible to the naked eye, will stand out to sensors — they will be perfect targets for bunker-busting munitions. Or fuel-air explosives could be used to suck the air out of the caves, or to collapse their entrances. Maybe the allies will have to take out all the caves — this can be done, they aren't infinite in number after all — or perhaps human intelligence will pinpoint which cavern is bin Laden's evil lair. With the hundreds of Taliban defections and an unlimited stoolie fund, that information should soon be forthcoming.

But that assumes bin Laden survives long enough to face allied attack. He will probably be taken care of much sooner. The Saudi terrorist and his al Qaeda network may have served a practical purpose to the Taliban in the past, but those days are gone. Bin Laden's Taliban support and protection were based on a shared belief system, common enemies, and large infusions of cash. Now the money is drying up, and he has no ready access to the accounts we haven't yet found. The common enemies have occupied the Afghan capital and are knocking at the gates of Kandahar. And the shared belief system? It is still there, probably as strong as ever, but in the terrorist world it's not the type of thing you'd want to bet your life on. Bin Laden is a marked man. He is the reason the allies have turned their attention to Afghanistan, he is the reason the Taliban's enemies occupy most of the country. He is worth more dead than alive, and in Afghanistan that is a poor predicament to be in.

Some members of the Taliban — those who have not yet defected — may begin thinking that their best chance for clemency would be to do the allies a favor and remove the cause of their misery. In fact they may have something to fear themselves if they don't act. The upper middle strata of the Taliban (and even al Qaeda), the people who implemented the orders, may find themselves targets for removal. They know where the bodies are buried, and I mean that literally. They are the witnesses to bin Laden's crimes. They also know where he is hiding, what his possible escape plans are, and other valuable information. While they live, he is in danger. Bodies may begin appearing the same way they did in Serbia when officers from the same level of the Milosevic regime started turning up dead as the dictator's grip on power began to slip and he began to cover his tracks. Mullah Omar might be pondering a similar purge, though one report has it that his friends in Pakistani military intelligence will give him sanctuary in Pakistan. Whether that should make his underlings breathe any easier is anybody's guess.

Bin Laden may also try to escape to Pakistan, or elsewhere. He could shave his beard, change his clothes, blend in somehow. After all how many six foot five remarkably charismatic and eminently recognizable Arabs are there in Afghanistan? He could try to sneak out among refugees, some of which are still leaving Afghanistan as others flood back in. Pakistan has recently tightened border security in the southwest because of threats from Taliban fighters seeking sanctuary. The Taliban at the border were threatening to kill journalists who were filming refugee families — makes one wonder who they might not want caught on tape.

At this point bin Laden's best move would be to surrender. He could attempt to force a trial and use it as a global platform to espouse his views. He could probably obtain a venue in which the death penalty would not be imposed, or failing that, he could have the martyrdom he allegedly does not fear. The alternative to surrender is swift and certain death. But the problem with surrendering is, to whom would he give up? Certainly not the Northern Alliance; at best he would face a pro-forma tribunal before he was decapitated and his head paraded through Kabul on a pike. At worst, torture, beheading, then the pike. Maybe he could find some allied commandos, U.S. or British, people who unlike bin Laden observe the Geneva Convention. But what are the odds he would be allowed to get close enough to surrender? Perhaps he is wired with dynamite — maybe he would want to take a few "crusaders" with him in a last glorious act of martyrdom. If you were a special-operations soldier in Afghanistan, would you take the chance?

Before anyone uses a bunker-buster on Bin Laden's cave, they should consider the consequences if Bin Laden, Mullah Omar, or any of the key players simply disappears. As was the case with Che Guevara, it would be a good idea to have proof that he is dead, or we'll have another immortal Elvis on our hands.

1) If allha, the muslim god is all powerful why would suicide ever be a option? 2) We do need the body as he becomes a "ghost" of inspiration to other muslims if we can not produce it!

This was why the Romanians were careful to shoot the Ceausescus through the heart and not in the head back in 1989. They wanted everyone to know that Ceausescu was dead so they showed his face on TV after his execution.

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