Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

Thursday, February 19, 2009
Osamabin Laden

One of the great and most mysterious failures of the administration of President George W. Bush was its inability to capture Osama bin Laden, the alleged financial backer of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Considering that bin Laden is 6’4” and in need of dialysis, his success in hiding for more than seven years is surprising, particularly taking into consideration the extremely advanced satellite imagery available to the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Now two UCLA geography professors, Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew, have published a report in which they use biogeographic theories to predict bin Laden’s most likely location. Their conclusion is that bin Laden, for whom there is a $25 million reward, is probably in one of three buildings in the town of Parachinar, capital of Kurram Agency in northwestern Pakistan, near the border of Afghanistan. Parachinar is a Shia area currently under siege by the Sunni Taliban.

 
Geographers Find bin Laden--Theoretically (by John Tierney, New York Times)
Finding Osama bin Laden: An Application of Biogeographic Theories and Satellite Imagery (by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew, MIT International Review) (PDF)

Comments

Leave a comment