28 December 2001. Thanks to WM.
December 27th
Wayne Madsen <WMadsen777@aol.com>
According to informed Afghan, Iranian, and U.S. government sources, Osama bin Laden managed to escape to the eastern Hadhramaut region of Yemen around the time of the first major snowfalls in Afghanistan in mid-November. Bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, apparently managed to slip out of Afghanistan through the porous border with Pakistan. With the help of local loyal Pashtun tribesmen and allies within the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence agency, Bin Laden is said to have boarded a boat in the vicinity of Gwader, Pakistan and made his way to Yemen, possibly via Oman where the Wahhabi sect commands a majority of Islamic adherents and Bin Laden enjoys some support. The U.S. Navy claims its ships in the Arabian Sea have been conducting thorough searches of vessels in the hunt for Bin Laden.
Gwader, a former possession of the Sultanate of Oman, is a traditional seaport linking Pakistan with the Arabian peninsula. The dhow traffic is so heavy, one observer opined that it would be nearly impossible for US Navy ships in the area to search each and every sailboat, especially if they travel at night without navigational lights.
If the reports on Bin Laden's whereabouts are true, he now resides in an area that is his birthplace and the ancestral home of his family. Some of the eastern Yemeni tribesmen are fiercely loyal to Bin Laden and the area is not easily penetrated by Yemeni security forces. Although a recent videotape of Bin Laden shown on Al Jazeera TV purportedly placed him in a cave fortress in Afghanistan around December 9, there is no confirmation that Bin Laden actually taped the video from Afghanistan. Recently, CIA, U.S. Special Forces, and Marine Corps units, along with Yemeni security patrols, have been involved in sorties resulting in occasional firefights with tribesmen in Yemen's remote mountainous provinces, an indication that U.S. and Yemeni intelligence believe that the armed tribal units in Yemen might now include Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda associates.
GWADER: BIN LADEN'S EXIT PORT
Gwader remained an Omani possession as part of the sultanate until September 1958. Gwader today belongs to the jurisdiction of the Government of Baluchistan - Home and Tribal Affairs Department - within the Makran Division. A number of Baluchis support Bin Laden. The African Muslim element is still very evident in this ex-Omani enclave and there are ties between the more militant of them and Bin Laden allies along the Kenyan, Somali, and Tanzanian coasts. Within the old Arab-African bazaar, there are a number of Bin Laden loyalists who can make things happen quickly and discretely (like a boat trip to Arabia).
Bin Laden's New Protectors
If Bin Laden has escaped to the Hadhramaut of Yemen, he would be surrounded by Sayyid tribesmen who are allied with members of the Saudi elite. In what could be bad news for those trying to pry Bin Laden out of the area, the Sayyids of the Hadhramaut are said to be direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed through a tribe led by Ahmed bin Isa al Muhajir, who arrived from Iraq around 951 AD. The people who would be protecting Bin Laden are semi-nomadic Sayyids who live among other mountain tribes between the Wadi Masila and the coast of the Arabian Sea. Bin Laden has publicly commented that the Hadhramaut is one area where he might want to seek sanctuary.
Hadhramautis are believed to have been behind the attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbor in Oct. 2000. At the time, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Karim al-Iryani reported that one of the men who steered the small boat of plastic explosives into the ship was born in the Hadramaut. The second man was also believed to be from Hadhramaut. The FBI's investigation of the Hadhramautis was shut down by the CIA Station in Sanaa when the investigation began linking the Hadhramautis and Bin Laden to members of the Saudi royal elite.
The Saudis are major backers of the tribes of the Hadhramaut who have been waging an intermittent civil war with the Yemeni central government in Sanaa. The primary FBI agent in that investigation, John P. O'Neill, was called back to New York after pressure was exerted on US ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine to spike O'Neill's potentially embarrassing investigation. O'Neill was among those killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.