09/05/03: (Knight Ridder Newspapers) SHKIN, Afghanistan - Far above the thick mud walls of the medieval fortress here, spy satellites and sophisticated aircraft search the skies for a stray electronic signal - a coded radio message, a satellite phone call - that might lead them to Osama bin Laden.

On the ground, U.S. and other coalition special forces operatives, sometimes bearded and dressed in civilian clothes, search for any clue that might point to the trail of the man blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

But it's been nearly two years since coalition forces have had any certain contact with bin Laden, and while U.S. military commanders voice confidence that one day he'll be tracked down, they acknowledge that they have little information on where he or his ally, former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, might be.

"I want to get him worse than anything," said Army Gen. John Abizaid, the top military officer in the U.S. Central Command, a region that includes Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. "He is a huge symbol for the 3,000 Americans who died, and we need to get him. We need to get Saddam; we need to get Omar."

The war against Saddam Hussein, however, may have hampered the pursuit of bin Laden and his Taliban allies. U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because intelligence matters are classified, said that as much as half of the intelligence and special forces assets in Afghanistan and Pakistan were diverted to support the war in Iraq.

It's a tribute to bin Laden's craftiness that the tall Arab who walks with a cane so far has been able to outfox what may be the most sophisticated and intense manhunt in history, even with a $25 million price on his head.

U.S. officials think the intensity of their manhunt has hampered bin Laden's command-and-control of al-Qaida; the United States is spending $1.1 billion a month to maintain its forces in Afghanistan.

But they don't underestimate their nemesis.

"They are no dummies," Abizaid said recently at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla. "They know what they are doing."

After some of his lieutenants were caught after they made cell or satellite phone calls, bin Laden communicates only with hand-carried notes, audiotapes and computer disks to avoid detection from the umbrella of American electronic surveillance overhead.

Many think he remains beyond the grasp of America's technology because of the peculiar nature of the ethnic Pashtun tribal areas along Pakistan's wild 1,600-mile border with Afghanistan.

The U.S. military calls the tribal areas "ungoverned spaces." By tradition, Pakistani troops never enter them without permission from the Pashtun leaders.

Bin Laden spread his wealth and good will in the tribal areas during the 1980 war to oust the communist Soviets from Islamic Afghanistan. Those actions are still revered, as are more recent ones: At several places along the border where Arab fighters have been killed in firefights, local people have created informal shrines to the fallen al-Qaida "martyrs."

The Pakistani government, wary of inflaming extremist religious factions, has resisted even moderate U.S. troop deployments in Pakistan. Only small teams of CIA, FBI and special forces personnel are operating in the country, largely from an air base in Jacobabad.

The Pakistan border is a mere 6 miles from the U.S. base at Shkin. The tribal area there is called Waziristan, and it's practically a separate country. The international border is a meaningless line to Waziris and their allies, who cross between Pakistan and Afghanistan at will.

Al-Qaida is openly recruiting in Waziristan. Occasionally the Waziri militias train their guns at the Americans. "During the day, they're Waziri border guards," said Lt. Chris Blaha, a soldier at Shkin. "At night, maybe they're soldiers-for-hire for al-Qaida."

While the tribal areas are hostile to intruders, the Pashtun code also calls for extravagant hospitality to friends and travelers.

"He could hide there easily," said Mohammed Sarwar Kakar, a Pashtun leader whose tribe of 2.5 million lives on both sides of the border between Quetta, Pakistan, and Kandahar, Afghanistan. "Many tribal people are liking him."

Some think bin Laden is encamped in remote southeastern Afghanistan, especially Kunar province, with a force of 125 or more.

Others who know him and his tactics think it's more likely that he's traveling with a smaller group of perhaps two dozen people, including aides, bodyguards, couriers, a cook and a doctor who provides care for his ailing kidneys. Most of his family members - including four wives - are thought to be living in Iran.

"It's my opinion that he has cut himself off from much of his group," said Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, a former Taliban commander who lives in Kabul. "Alone, he can hide himself. But with a group, he is more visible."

"I think he has a small force, lightly armed, a force that can move quickly and hide easily," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist based in Peshawar, Pakistan, who was the last person to interview bin Laden. He said bin Laden probably relocated only when a senior al-Qaida leader was captured. "He knows the man will be aggressively interrogated, so that's when he moves."

Most theories hold that bin Laden is somewhere rugged and remote. But his most senior aides have been caught in Pakistan's biggest cities. Abu Zubaydah was nabbed in Faisalabad and Ramzi Binalshibh was picked up in Karachi last year. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, No. 3 in the al-Qaida hierarchy, was discovered in a house in Rawalpindi last March.

Given that, some have suggested that bin Laden might be living in a major city, hiding in plain sight.

"He could shave his beard, don a three-piece suit, and he could hide anywhere, probably forever," said Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, the former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistan spy agency that aided the Taliban's rise. "No one could detect him. He has been in the West and he knows the ways of the West."

Yusufzai thinks bin Laden wouldn't blend in very well even in a teeming city. He's said to be about 6 feet 4, much taller than the average Pakistani or Afghan. Chronic back pain also forces the 46-year-old bin Laden to use a cane, another possible giveaway.

If bin Laden is in the rugged border region, there are countless smuggler tracks and trails he can use, secret paths that can't be monitored easily.

"The border is very open, with Jeeps and trucks going back and forth," said Kakar, the tribal leader who's also a Pakistani senator from Baluchistan province.

Few people think the $25 million reward will have much effect. Kakar and others said any tribal people who gave up bin Laden would be signing death warrants for themselves and their extended families. Gul called the reward "stupid.'"

"Osama can pay more than that to people hosting him," Gul said in a recent interview at his home in a military enclave in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He first met bin Laden in 1992.

Kakar thinks bin Laden is in Ribat, where Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran intersect. Also called the Triangle, Ribat is ruthlessly defended by heroin and opium smugglers.

It was there, earlier this spring, that intelligence agents thought they had finally found bin Laden, "hot on his trail, just a few hours behind him," according to a Pakistani official who's close to the operation and who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Using information gathered after Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured, agents drew a bead on a donkey caravan moving in the Triangle.

But when a commando force swept down, it found merely a caravan of opium smugglers.

If U.S. agents or Pakistani troops should back bin Laden into a corner, diplomats in Islamabad say, the Pakistanis will let the Americans mount the assault and take the credit for his death or capture. That would give a huge political boost to President Bush while deflecting some of the heat Pakistan's government is sure to get from religious hard-liners and Islamist zealots.

Most think bin Laden never will be taken alive, that he has given orders to his entourage to kill him first.

"This is a man resigned to his fate and not afraid to die for his cause," Yusufzai said at his home in Peshawar. "He knows his hideout will be found, but they've decided he won't be captured. He will always be seen as a martyr and an important symbol of resistance."

The United States has been pressing the Pakistanis to pursue terrorists more diligently in the tribal areas, but the results have been slow in coming.

"We have a great level of cooperation with Pakistani forces," Abizaid said in Tampa. "But on the other hand, it has not actually reached the level of combined operations."

"The Pakistan army is now operating in tribal areas where it never operated before, where even the British didn't go," said a Western diplomat, who asked not to be identified.

The Americans in the region voiced optimism that one day a tip will pay off.

"I know the American people are expecting immediate results," said Col. Barry Shapiro, the chief of staff of the coalition forces in Afghanistan. "But we're making incremental gains. We see more people coming in every day, offering up information."

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(Knight Ridder correspondent Joseph L. Galloway contributed to this report.)

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© 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.