Obama finds Osama!

It's not exactly Obama, but rather a few professors, and he's not exactly found, but rather his location was determined. Still, isn't that a reason to celebrate good times, open a bottle of champagne and go shopping?!?

Two profs from UCLA, Thomas Gillespie and John Agnew used a variety of methods to pinpoint Osama’s location.

 

Forget remote caves, science and deduction put Al Qaeda leader in city near border
Feb 19, 2009 04:30 AM

Steve Holland
Reuters News Agency

WASHINGTON–After all these years, where is Osama bin Laden? Two geography professors think they know.

Professors Thomas Gillespie and John Agnew of the University of California at Los Angeles used satellite-imagery analysis and elaborate geographic methods to theorize that bin Laden is in the city of Parachinar in the mountains of northwestern Pakistan.

The professors believe bin Laden might be in one of three walled compounds in the city, about 20 kilometres from the Afghan border.

The Al Qaeda leader has been hiding since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., occasionally surfacing in video recordings released by supporters.

He has resisted efforts to find him, even with a $25 million (U.S.) reward for information.

"We believe that our work involves the first scientific approach to establishing his current location," Gillespie and Agnew wrote in the MIT International Review. "The methods are repeatable and can be updated with new information obtained from the U.S. intelligence community."

Using bin Laden's last reported whereabouts, the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, they employed "theories that predict how plants and animals distribute themselves over space and over time." They deduced that Parachinar is the most likely refuge, where the Al Qaeda leader could have electricity, personal privacy and a few bodyguards while remaining protected from aerial view.

Staying near a large city should reduce the risk of being found in a military raid, compared to a small city or isolated structure, they said.

What is more, "Parachinar has a long history of housing mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, so it most likely contains a large number of Taliban soldiers who cross over from here into Afghanistan."

Gillespie and Agnew did not believe bin Laden was holed up in a cave, a popular view fostered by former U.S. president George W. Bush.

"A cave would have to have a sealed entrance, be heated and ventilated, and have supplies transported to the cave monthly or annually," they said.

"We feel that most of these requirements would have physical manifestation that might easily be seen from space, and that the cave hypothesis is unlikely but could be tested."

I’m willing to bet $1000 that they’re right. Then again, we wouldn’t be able to check, and has Power ever listened to Reason?

Source: torstar

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