Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen – The Washington Post
In 2005, a CIA analyst named Rebecca (a pseudonym) wrote a memo laying out a new strategy for the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Given the absence of any real leads, she asked, how could you plausibly find him? She sketched out what she saw as four pillars on which the search needed to be built. Her solution turned out to be prophetic.
“The first pillar was locating al-Qaeda’s leader through his courier network,” Peter L. Bergen writes in his new book, “Manhunt.” “The second was locating him through family members, either those who might be with him or anyone in his family who might try to get in touch with them. The third was communications. . . . The final pillar was tracking bin Laden’s occasional outreach to the media.”
We know now, of course, that finding bin Laden’s personal courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, is what led the United States to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and, with that, ended the decade-long battle of wits between the terrorist leader and U.S. intelligence agencies.
