Question mark over Pakistan's agenda

The attack on London shifts the focus back to the United States-led hunt for al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

During his three days in New Zealand last month Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden was "hiding in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan".

This coincides with CIA director Porter Goss' parallel claim that he has an "excellent idea" where bin Laden is hiding. However, this convergence is no indication that Washington and Islamabad are speaking with one voice.

In an interview with Time magazine, Goss pointed to "weak links" in the war on terror and "sanctuaries in sovereign states" as factors undermining the hunt.

Goss did not name the country or countries he had in mind when he spoke of sanctuaries. But the outgoing US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, told a news conference: "I don't believe that Osama is in Afghanistan." This raises the key question: Has Pakistan delivered on the war on terror?

The US has custody of two top-ranking al Qaeda figures captured on Pakistani soil. The first scalp in March 2002 was that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, thought to be an international operations planner for al Qaeda. This was followed by the arrest of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a close associate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Libbi, suspected of masterminding two failed assassination attempts against Musharraf, was transferred to US custody and President Bush hailed his capture as a "critical victory in the war on terror".

Publicly, the US has never missed an opportunity to praise Pakistan for its contribution in the effort to combat terrorism. But the bottom line is acutely embarrassing: Nearly four years after the September 11 attacks, bin Laden remains at large within the sovereign territory of America's frontline ally in the war on terror.

Musharraf has publicly acknowledged that America's most-wanted fugitive, with a US$25 ($37.27) million bounty on his head, is moving freely in his own backyard.

Former CIA officer Gary Schroen, who led the hunt for bin Laden between 1997 and 1999 and again after the attacks on September 11, 2001, said in a BBC interview: "The Pakistani Government still is very reluctant to actually try to deal with bin Laden because the uproar in their country will be tremendous if they are actually seen as facilitating his capture or his death."

For the record, the US applauds Musharraf as a staunch ally. But there is growing suspicion that the general, in co-opting the hunt for al Qaeda in Pakistan, is steering it in a direction that suits his domestic agenda.

The Pakistani President has deftly juggled US strategic interests in the midst of an increasingly volatile domestic context marked by the growth of hardline Islamic parties.

But the US moves to a tight time-frame. Every day that bin Laden remains at large, his mystique grows and inspires al Qaeda sleeper cells around the globe.

He may be a symbolic leader now. Experts doubt that bin Laden is in a position to plan and order attacks.

As his relevance in the new global terror movement is hotly debated, US relations with Pakistan may be unravelling.

If Musharraf is slow to help CIA operatives in Pakistan carry out their orders to "capture bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice", he may see his position slip on Bush's guest list.