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Huge cash bounties bring in no Al-Qaeda honchos

May 18, 2008 8:38 pm By Robert Spencer

Gee, now why might this be? “Bounties a Bust in Hunt for Al-Qaeda: Lavish U.S. Rewards Program Has Failed to Dent Network’s Leadership,” by Craig Whitlock for the Washington Post, May 17, 2008 :

SANAA, Yemen — Jaber Elbaneh is one of the world’s most-wanted terrorism suspects. In 2003, the U.S. government indicted him, posted a $5 million reward for his capture and distributed posters bearing photos of him around the globe.

None of it worked. Elbaneh remains at large, as wanted as ever. The al-Qaeda operative, however, isn’t very hard to find.

One day last month, he shuffled down a busy street here in the Yemeni capital, past several indifferent policemen. Then he disappeared inside a building, though not before accidentally stepping on a reporter’s toes.

Elbaneh, 41, is one of two dozen al-Qaeda members listed under a U.S. program that offers enormous sums of cash for information leading to their capture. For years, the Bush administration has touted the bounties as a powerful tool in its fight against terrorism. But in the hunt for al-Qaeda, it has proved a bust.

Known as Rewards for Justice, the program dates to 1984 and was originally used to track down fugitive terrorism suspects of all persuasions, from the Balkans to the Palestinian territories. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the most-wanted list was expanded — and the rewards boosted exponentially — as part of a push to eliminate al-Qaeda’s leadership.

So far, however, Rewards for Justice has failed to put a dent in al-Qaeda’s central command. Offers of $25 million each for al-Qaeda founders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have attracted hundreds of anonymous calls but no reliable leads, officials familiar with the program say. For a time, the program was generating so little useful information that in Pakistan, where most al-Qaeda chiefs are believed to be hiding, it was largely abandoned.

“It’s certainly been ineffective,” said Robert L. Grenier, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan and former director of the agency’s counterterrorism center. “It hasn’t produced results, and it hasn’t particularly produced leads.”

The failures of Rewards for Justice can be traced to several factors: weak publicity campaigns in places where al-Qaeda’s leadership is based; skepticism that the United States would deliver the money and protect informants; and a mistaken assumption that anyone’s loyalty can be bought if the price is high enough….

And the mistaken assumption that the ideology of the jihadists is rejected by the overwhelming majority of Muslims.

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