No Leads In Search For Bin Laden

A major CIA effort launched last year to hunt down Osama bin Laden has produced no significant leads on his whereabouts, but has helped track an alarming increase in the movement of al Qaeda operatives and money into Pakistans tribal territories, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation.

Iraq, the moneymaker

In one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that al Qaedas command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash from Iraq, where the terrorist networks operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has drawn increasingly large contributions from elsewhere in the Muslim world.

“Success in Iraq and Afghanistan is the reason people are contributing again, with money and private contributions coming back in from the gulf,” said the senior U.S. counterterrorism official.

The influx of money has bolstered al Qaedas leadership ranks at a time when the core command is regrouping and reasserting influence over its far-flung network. The trend also signals a reversal in the traditional flow of al Qaeda funds, with the networks leadership surviving to a large extent on money coming in from its most profitable franchise, rather than distributing funds from headquarters to distant cells.

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