Dead or alive

My estimation of this story about some guy trying to track down Bin Laden single handedly is that probably people in Pakistan don't want Bin Laden to be found. By the sound of it the fellow is a lone loony of the "guns and god" variety, but at the same time the Americans, British and others in Afghanistan don't exactly seem to have gone to any great lengths to locate the world's most wanted man. Indeed, despite the claims made by politicians over the previous decade, finding Bin Laden and bringing him to justice doesn't seem to be anywhere on the priority list. Instead, lots of off-topic activities seem to have taken place, and the scope creep has been quite egregious.

Even a criminal mastermind hiding in a deep underground bunker has to have connections to the outside world - so long as he needs to eat and live anything resembling a comfortable lifestyle - and with concerted effort it should be possible to uncover this human chain. The US has satellite technology with incredible resolution, so with enough overhead surveillance it should be difficult for anyone to move through remote areas without being automatically logged. Even though I don't expect satellites to be able to identify individuals by sight, simply logging the trails along which people and vehicles move should be enough to provide important clues if there is some secret facility in a remote area being periodically resupplied.

Of course, this is assuming that he's hiding in a bunker as is commonly surmised. Perhaps that's not the case at all, and he's living in a city "safe house" but being protected by a few influential and loyal local individuals. In this scenario overhead surveillance would not be of very much use, and over-reliance upon elaborate technology rather than old-fashioned spies on the ground listening to gossip on the street could be the reason why Bin Laden has so far managed to elude detection.