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A secret hunt unravels in Afghanistan
Mission to capture or kill al-Qaida leader frustrated by near misses, political disputes

By Steve Coll, Washington Times.com

The seeds of the CIA's first formal plan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden were contained in another urgent manhunt -- for Mir Aimal Kasi, the Pakistani migrant who murdered two CIA employees while spraying rounds from an assault rifle at cars idling before the entrance to the CIA's Langley headquarters in 1993.

For several years after the shooting, Kasi remained a fugitive in the border areas straddling Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. From its Langley offices, the CIA's Counterterrorist Center asked the Islamabad station for help recruiting agents who might be able to track Kasi down. Case officers signed up a group of Afghan tribal fighters who had worked for the CIA during the 1980s guerrilla war against Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan.
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Flawed Ally Was Hunt's Best Hope
Washington Post ^ | Feb. 23, 2004 | Steve Coll

By 1999, Massoud was seen by some at the Pentagon and inside the Clinton Cabinet as a spent force commanding bands of thugs. An inner circle of the Cabinet with access to the most closely guarded secrets was sharply divided over whether the United States should deepen its partnership with him. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Henry H. "Hugh" Shelton -- reflecting the views of professional analysts in their departments -- argued that Massoud's alliance was tainted and in decline.

But at the CIA, especially inside the Counterterrorist Center, career officers passionately described Massoud by 1999 as the United States' last, best hope to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan before his al Qaeda network claimed more American lives. Massoud might be a flawed ally, they declared, but bin Laden was by far the greater danger.

This article, detailing the CIA's pursuit of bin Laden from 1999 to 2001, is based on several dozen interviews with participants and officials in the United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as documents, private records and memoirs about the CIA covert action program in Afghanistan.

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Policy Disputes Over Hunt Paralyzed Clinton's Aides
Washington Post ^ | , February 22, 2004 | Steve Coll

Between 1998 and 2000, the CIA and President Bill Clinton's national security team were caught up in paralyzing policy disputes as they secretly debated the legal permissions for covert operations against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

The debates left both White House counterterrorism analysts and CIA career operators frustrated and at times confused about what kinds of operations could be carried out, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials and lawyers who were directly involved. There was little question that under U.S. law it was permissible to kill bin Laden and his top aides, at least after the evidence showed they were responsible for the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.

The ban on assassinations -- contained in a 1981 executive order by President Ronald Reagan -- did not apply to military targets, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel had previously ruled in classified opinions. Bin Laden's Tarnak Farm and other terrorist camps in Afghanistan were legitimate military targets under this definition, White House lawyers agreed.

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