October 2009 Archives

December 2001, three months after terrorists have destroyed the Twin Towers and brought America to its knees.
The US is struggling to hold together a fragile coalition for its invasion of Afghanistan.
Questions are being raised about the strength of the evidence against their prime suspect for the 9/11 atrocities.
And the notoriously loudmouthed Al Qaeda chief still hasn't claimed responsibility.
Suddenly a video tape appears from a house in Jalalabad showing a barely recognisable Osama Bin Laden confessing all.
Could this be fortunate timing? Or is the video a fake recording of a man who is already dead?
Bin Laden has been the western world's most wanted man for the best part of a decade.
Well over 6ft tall, sporting a distinctive beard and with an instantly recognisable face the Saudi militant should stand out a mile.
But more than eight years after the 9/11 attacks he is said to have masterminded, Al Qaeda's commander in chief remains on the run.
He could still be sheltering in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan.
He may be hiding in the lawless tribal regions of North West Pakistan.
There is even a chance that he has sought refuge in a Middle Eastern state sympathetic to his fanatical cause.
Amid all of these possibilities there is one which is rarely covered in the mainstream media.
Osama Bin Laden, the Great Satan's staunchest foe, the devil incarnate himself, could well be dead.
With so much money, manpower and murder expended on attempts at capturing him, how can one man continue to elude the most powerful military in human history?
Surely with infinite resources, gadgets that would make James Bond's eyes pop out, and enough explosives to destroy the planet a thousand times over, the US would have found this elderly cleric with a serious kidney ailment by now?
Unless of course, he is no longer there to be found.
His death would certainly not have been announced by the Al Qaeda lieutenants who rely on his iconic status to recruit the deranged youths they need to wage their unholy war.
Nor would it have been trumpeted by the US had they caught wind of his demise.
With Bin Laden's life goes the human face of 9/11, the face that launched a hundred unmanned drones in Pakistan, a thousand F16s in Iraq, tens of thousands of soldiers in the Afghan badlands.
On the history pages Bin Laden's image is destined to sit next to those of Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler as a case study in evil.
But with conflicting reports about his health, question marks over the authenticity of his videos and rumours about a burial, has he been consigned to those pages already?