Geographic analysis puts bin Laden in Pakistan

[one...two...tree 2,762]

USA TODAY

Fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden is most likely hiding out in a walled compound in a Pakistani border town, according to a satellite-aided geographic analysis released today. A research team led by geographer Thomas Gillespie of the University of California, Los Angeles, used geographic analytical tools that have been successful in locating urban criminals and endangered species.

Basing their conclusion on nighttime satellite images and other techniques, the scientists suggest that bin Laden may well be in one of three compounds in Parachinar, a town 12 miles from the Pakistan border.

The research incorporates public reports of bin Laden's habits and whereabouts since his 2001 flight from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan.

The results, reported in the MIT International Review, are being greeted with polite, yet skeptical, interest among those involved in the hunt for bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Bin Laden's whereabouts are considered "one of the most important political questions of our time," the study notes.

"I've never really believed the sitting-in-a-cave theory. That's the last place you would want to be bottled up," Gillespie said. The study's real value, he said, is in combining satellite records of geographic locations, patterns of nighttime electricity use and population-detection methods to produce a technique for locating fugitives.

Essentially, the study generates hiding-place location probabilities.

It starts with "distance-decay theory," which holds that the odds are greater that the person will be found close to where he or she was last sighted.

Then, the researchers add the "island-biographic theory," which maintains that locales with more resources - palm trees for tropical birds and electricity for wealthy fugitives - are likelier to draw creatures of interest.

"Island-biographic theory suggests bin Laden would end up in the biggest and least isolated city of the region," Gillespie said, one among about 26 towns within a 20-mile distance of Tora Bora.

The researchers contacted the FBI with their findings, and USA Today asked Defense Department officials for reaction, before publication of the study.

"The combination of physical terrain, sociocultural gravitational factors and the physical characteristic of structures are all important factors in developing an area limitation for terror suspects," said John Goolgasian of the federal National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Bethesda, Md.

His spy-satellite agency "looks forward to reviewing the article once it is published."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/200...nladen0217.html

[Saddle Bronc 124]

IMO, it's more likely that he's in one of:

• Faisalabad
• Sargodha
• Gujranwala
• Quetta
• Charsadda
• Hangu
• Multan

(country unchanged) Edited February 17, 2009 by CherryXS

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

If he really was there, he isn't now.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

If he really was there, he isn't now.

Disagree, as he has about half the country to hide in

[NickD 203]

Who is Osama bin Laden? Recall hearing that name years and years ago. Could have been in a previous life. Wasn't he the dictator of Iraq?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Who is Osama bin Laden? Recall hearing that name years and years ago. Could have been in a previous life. Wasn't he the dictator of Iraq?

You are thinking of Bin Hussien Osama, I think

[NickD 203]

Who is Osama bin Laden? Recall hearing that name years and years ago. Could have been in a previous life. Wasn't he the dictator of Iraq?

You are thinking of Bin Hussien Osama, I think

Or is that Bin Hussien Obama?