St, Aug 24, 2006
Osama 'spends his days watching CNN and surfing the Net'
By Bhagyashree Garekar
FIVE years after orchestrating the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks on
the United States, the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin
Laden, leads a humdrum existence.
Picture him cooped up in an unremarkable house, tuned in to TV
news, clicking the mouse as he surfs the Internet.
The fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is likely to find him in
Pakistan's mountainous Chitral district, close to its border with
Afghanistan, according to Mr Peter Bergen, a CNN terrorism analyst
who has written two books on the Al-Qaeda chief.
'He leads a boring life,' Mr Bergen, who also teaches at Johns
Hopkins University in the US, told The Straits Times on Tuesday, in
a phone interview from Atlanta.
'I think he is living in a house, not moving about very much...he
cannot go out, he is a very recognisable person...Has two
bodyguards, is spending a lot of time listening to the BBC radio or
watching CNN.
'Perhaps, with an Internet connection. If you look at his
statements, he is very well informed about current events.'
But his intent is as deadly as ever.
A new CNN feature report - based in part on one of Mr Bergen's
books - provides a chilling reminder that Osama has a fatwa or
religious sanction to use nuclear weapons and kill 'up to' 10
million Americans.
In the two-hour documentary, Mr Michael Scheuer, who once headed a
Central Intelligence Agency unit tasked to hunt Osama, tells CNN's
chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour that the
Al-Qaeda chief has been given permission by an unnamed young cleric
in Saudi Arabia to 'use nuclear weapons against the United
States...capping the casualties at 10 million'.
The programme traces the transformation of a quiet, privileged
child into a hatred-racked extremist through interviews with people
who knew him.
Mr Brian Fyfield-Shayler, who taught English to an 11-year-old
Osama in 1968 at a Jeddah school, revealed that he was a shy pupil,
while his childhood pal Khalid Batarfi recounts Osama's fondness
for Bruce Lee and cowboy Westerns.
Is the elusive Osama likely to mark his 50th birthday next March a
free man?
'In a sense it is not surprising we have not been able to find
him,' said Mr Bergen.
'He's in Pakistan where the US military or Nato troops can't go. He
is a secretive and paranoid individual, careful about his personal
security for many years.
'He is not making obvious errors, he is not using the phone, there
is no electronic intelligence on him.
'Secondly, people in his immediate circle are not motivated by
money. The cash reward for bin Laden is US$25 million (S$39
million),' he said.
'There have been no takers.'
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A BORING LIFE
'He leads a boring life. I think he is living in a house, not
moving about very much...he cannot go out, he is a very
recognisable person...Has two bodyguards, is spending a lot of time
listening to the BBC radio or watching CNN. Perhaps, with an
Internet connection. If you look at his statements, he is very well
informed about current events.'
CNN TERRORISM ANALYST PETER BERGEN, on the life of Al-Qaeda chief
Osama bin Laden 
