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Bin Laden and fellow al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Beliefs and ideology

"Allah knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed – when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way (and) to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women." – Osama bin Laden, 2004[

In Quetta, a city in southwestern Pakistan, Afghan refugees said teachers in madrassas and members of hardline religious parties urge young men to join the new Taliban insurgency.

That depth of feeling, some Pakistanis note, is what makes Osama bin Laden so difficult to catch.

As dusk arrived in the city last Saturday and the call to prayer sounded from local mosques, a young Afghan madrassa student in a turban demanded that a visiting American leave the area. As the foreigner drove away, a young boy spat in his face.

He said the reason the Arabs have not been caught is simple: the local populace reveres them.

''Everybody knows them,'' the official said. ''Everybody supports them.''

September 23. Bin Laden was believed by Pakistani officials to be on the Afghan-Pakistani border. He is said to have been keeping a low profile, with as little as ten men guarding him.

June. Taliban leader Mullah Bakht Mohammed claimed "The latest proof that he is alive is that he sent me a letter of condolences after the martyrdom of my brother. He advised me to follow my brother's path."

July 12, Pakistan's Interior Minister states bin Laden is not in Pakistan. The TimesOnline reports that he is still hiding in Afghanistan; Kunar Province being not far from Tora Bora

Reported beliefs include that a Christian-Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam,[12] which is largely embodied in the U.S.-Israel alliance, and that the killing of bystanders and civilians is religiously justified in jihad.

Al-Qaeda's management philosophy has been described as "centralization of decision and decentralization of execution."

"emergence of decentralized leadership"

Militant Islamist groups that were originally recruited, trained and armed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) have since become Islamabad's deadliest enemies. Twice they have nearly succeeded in assassinating Musharraf, who was once among their strongest supporters. In the last six years extremists have killed more than 1,000 Pakistani troops.

Today no other country on earth

is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that don't always do what they're supposed to do.