Other Nations' Manhunts

Posting about the Israeli pursuit of Imad Mughniyeh the other day reminded me of a question I was asked a couple of times while doing publicity for Wanted Dead or Alive, specifically whether other nations undertook strategic manhunts and whether the lessons learned from U.S. campaigns were applicable. Although I could refer to the British pursuits of Muhammad `Abd Allāh al-Hasan (a.k.a. the "Mad Mullah") in the 1900s-1910s in Somalia and the Faqir of Ipi in Waziristan in the 1930s and 1940s (both of which ended in failure), and I talked somewhat out my posterior at last year's Tucson Festival of Books about the Israeli hunt for Adolph Eichmann from 1948-1960 (when he was captured in Argentina and literally kidnapped back to Israel for trial), I suggested there were few modern cases against which to compare my findings.

Well, the "n" is definitely getting larger, as indicated by two recent articles on the Chinese hunt in Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar for Naw Kham, a drug lord who killed 13 Chinese seamen on the Mekong River and a Reuters update on the Iraqi Security Forces hunt for Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest ranking member of Saddam Hussein's regime still on the loose a decade after the fall of Baghdad. (He was the King of Clubs on the "Iraqi Most Wanted Playing Cards.")

Both pieces reinforce the importance of human terrain. U.S.-Iraqi forces were unable to lay a hand upon al-Douri while he was out of the country (presumably in Syria), and now Iraqi forces are apparently having trouble finding him in Sunni tribal areas at a time of high partisan tensions in Iraq. Conversely, the Chinese were able to obtain reliable allies -- Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand -- in the Golden Triangle in which Naw Kham operated (even if this was done with some diplomatic strong arming), and developed their own network of informants that allowed them to gradually tighten the noose on the drug lord until they were able to apprehend him.

Is the hunt for the last senior Ba'athist in Iraq heating up again?