President-elect Barack Obama plans to redouble U.S. military and intelligence efforts to track down al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Sept. 10).
"This is our enemy," one high-level Obama aide said, "and he should be our principal target."
Bush administration officials have in public minimized the importance of finding the man behind the Sept. 11 attacks amid wider efforts to combat terrorism, the Post reported.
Representatives of the U.S. intelligence community stressed that while the search for bin Laden remains a priority, capturing or killing the terrorist leader would have limited effect thwarting the wider al-Qaeda network.
Obama’s transition group has not yet finished reviewing the current role of U.S. military and intelligence programs, and the team must still determine how to handle relations with Pakistan, the nation that U.S. intelligence personnel consider bin Laden’s most likely hideout (Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Nov. 11).