Today in Manhunting History -- February 8, 1999: The Non-Attack on bin Laden's Hunting Camp

In February 1999, the CIA’s Afghan tribal agents reported that Osama bin Laden had travelled to an elaborate cluster of hunting camps – replete with elegant tents, a small fleet of Land Cruisers, and a plane parked nearby – in Western Afghanistan. The CIA’s confidence in the tribals’ reporting had increased and the collective feeling at the NSC (as recalled by Daniel Benjamin and Scott Simon) was “Bingo! It had to be bin Laden.” Because of the remote location, a missile strike would have less risk of collateral damage, and on February 8 the military began to prepare for a possible strike.  

Satellite reconnaissance confirmed the location and description of the largest camp, but it also revealed the plane was an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates, and the falconers included several UAE princes. Although the satellite photos provided enough detail that analysts could make out the falcons roosting on their poles, the location of bin Laden’s quarters could not be precisely determined. All the tribals could report was that bin Laden regularly visited the Emiratis from an adjacent camp, and that they expected him to be at the hunting camp for such a visit at least until midmorning on February 11.  

Without a picture of bin Laden standing outside his tent or the tracking team able to get close enough to the camp, neither the Islamabad station nor the Agency’s Counter Terrorism Center could provide a 100 percent guarantee of bin Laden’s location. Policymakers were paralyzed by the fear that a strike on the main camp would kill an Emirati prince or senior official, and by February 12 bin Laden had moved on.

The discovery of an official UAE aircraft led the proposed strike on Bin Laden's hunting camp to be aborted.