CIA: We Have No Idea Where Bin Laden Is

Panetta says agency hasn't had intelligence on him in years
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 28, 2010 8:00 AM CDT

Don’t expect the CIA to catch Osama bin Laden any time soon; Leon Panetta yesterday admitted that his agency hasn’t had any precise intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts since “the early 2000s.” The agency believes he’s in Pakistan’s tribal region, but “he is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding," he told ABC News.

He did evince a little optimism, noting that the CIA had taken down more than half of al-Qaeda’s leadership. “If we keep that pressure on, we think ultimately we can flush out bin Laden and Zawahiri,” he said. But he admitted that Afghanistan contained a “relatively small” number of al-Qaeda fighters. “At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less,” he said. “There’s no question that the main location of al-Qaeda is in the tribal areas of Pakistan.” (More Leon Panetta stories.)

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