{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.025510204081632654, 'fraction_numerical': 0.017006802721088437, 'mean_word_length': 5.074010327022375, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Remote Sensing and GIS as Counterterrorism Tools in the Afghanistan War: Reality, Plus the Results of Media Hyperbole

Many applications of remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) have been, and are being, used actively for counterterrorism in the ongoing confrontation between the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and the coalitions led by the United States. The recent case study of such methodology applied to the Zhawar Kili area in the Pushtun tribal region by Richard Beck (Beck 2003) is an example of a necessary intersection of the geosciences (geography and geology) with essential intelligence communities. But Beck’s article also refers to public identification of the site of the initial bin Laden video from Al Jazeera on the basis of the supposed sedimentary rocks behind him. This actually requires discussion in order to set the record straight and differentiate truth from the disinformation of the time, as well as to explain the extensive media hyperbole and a few other factors in the original failed attempt to catch bin Laden in Afghanistan. The events surrounding the search for bin Laden actually occurred closer to the Tora Bora area of the western Spin Ghar (Safed Koh) Range than to the Zhawar Kili region to the south, but Beck was obviously correct in his general assessment that remote sensing and GIS are useful in counterterrorism efforts. The situation behind those events was explained in meetings for assessing the geographical dimensions of terrorism (Cutter, Richardson, and Wilbanks 2002), as well as at the AAG–ESRIsponsored ‘‘Mapping the News’’ conference at Georgetown University in the fall of 2002. Beck’s (2003) article makes it necessary to explain the unusual background behind these events, as well as to suggest some reasons why things played out as they did in the U.S.’s original failure to capture bin Laden. In my opinion, not all of this information can, or should, be freely publicized, and even though there are no official restrictions, I wish to be circumspect. Therefore, the following discussion and graphics will present only the background information to the initial hunt for bin Laden that differs from Beck’s presentation. Some of this background starts over three decades ago in 1972, when Christian Jung and I started the Afghanistan Studies Center (ASC) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNOmaha). Then, in the 1970s, while I was director of the National Atlas of Afghanistan in Kabul (Shroder 1975, 1978, 1980, 1983), as well as in the 1980s while a Fulbright Professor in Peshawar, Pakistan (Shroder 1983, 1989a–d; Shroder and Assifi 1987; Shroder et al. 1989), extensive travels in the region and a large-scale map collection from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) enabled me to observe a variety of rock types and landforms on both sides of the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. This background and familiarity with Afghanistan is part of the explanation of the events surrounding the identification of bin Laden’s whereabouts in the Spin Ghar (Safed Koh) Range in the eastern part of the country. The geology of this prominent mountain chain consists of high-grade, metamorphic, and igneous crystalline rocks that commonly form tor landforms where their weathered mantles are stripped away to leave rounded, bouldery bedrock exposures in places at lower altitudes. Furthermore, in this semiarid region, the sparse forest and savannah vegetation is limited to geographically diagnostic species such as Juniperus sp. and Quercus baloot