Pakistan Arrests U.S. Man Hunting Osama bin Laden

By: Tucker Reals
Topics: In The News ,; Afghanistan ,; Pakistan ,; World Watch ,; Terror Monitor ,; Al Qaeda

Police in northwestern Pakistan tell CBS News an American citizen has been arrested for allegedly attempting to cross the border into Afghanistan to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.

A police source tells CBS News' Sami Yousafzai that the man, identified by the Associated Press as Gary Faulkner from California, was arrested between the scenic Pakistani town of Chitral and the Taliban stronghold of Nuristan on the Afghan side of the border.

The American national had been staying at a hotel in Chitral, a popular tourist destination where he apparently had traveled before. Local police assigned an officer to monitor the hotel, due to the presence of the American in a region where anti-U.S. Islamic militants are abundant. Police say he was traveling on a tourist visa.

Police say the man left his hotel quietly without notifying them of his intentions.

He was located after a wide search, allegedly carrying a handgun, a sword, a dagger and night vision equipment. The police source tells Yousafzai the man said he wanted to go to Nuristan to kill the al Qaeda leader.

Osama bin Laden's whereabouts have remained a mystery since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but he is widely believed by intelligence officials to be hiding out somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Police say the American is being held in Chitral, but may be transferred as soon as Tuesday to the large northwestern city of Peshawar for a more detailed investigation.

USA Today identifies the suspect as Gary Brooks Faulkner, a 52-year-old construction worker from California.

The case is the first known example of a U.S. citizen being arrested in Pakistan with alleged aspirations of fighting against the region's Islamic militants.

Five young American men from the Washington D.C. area were arrested in the eastern Pakistani city of Sargodha late last year, allegedly trying to connect with Taliban militants and join the fight against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The State Department said in December that it expected the men to be deported back to the U.S., but the Pakistani investigation into whether they committed any chargeable crimes in the country is ongoing.

CBS News' Maria Usman reports the young men are due back in court for another hearing next week, with a verdict expected as soon as the first week of July.

Tucker Reals
Tucker Reals is a senior news editor and overnight site editor for CBSNews.com, based at CBS News' London bureau.

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by wyodutch June 15, 2010 6:03 PM EDT: Well... At least someone was hunting Bin Laden.... The Amertican military is busy hunting Afghanistan's mineral wealth.; Reply to this comment


by ToolMangler1 June 15, 2010 5:19 PM EDT: Pakistan has proved their allegiance to Bin Ladin once again and they wonder why the West doesn't trust them.; Reply to this comment


by yermamma June 15, 2010 4:39 PM EDT: Why? Let the man hunt. He seems to be the only one doing it. I guess we need a boogey man. A monster under the bed. What would Luke be without Vader?; Reply to this comment


by mjlewis6 June 15, 2010 3:40 PM EDT: Osama bin Ladin does not exit his 'residence' except in women's garb and IMMEDIATELY sits down or is always seated when outside since he is so TALL. He does not speak when wearing the hijab. His bodyguards are considerable, but even so, it is conjectured Osama wears the entire women's wardrobe and makeup with jewelry so as to confuse anyone who does 'violate' the hijab by reaching to touch a female, a wide practice among Muslims to touch women who are without a relative to escort them. Osama's makeup is kosher or approved so as not to contain any swine product. Likewise, his SEX is listed as female when being treated for his blood ailment and any doctor treating him has to respect the female covering, so for the most part..Osama truly hates the US for having to conceal himself in women's clothing in order to survive. As a Sunni Arab, he does not even mix well with the Sheite majority and is out of touch with Iranian ambitions, preferring a Saudi Caliphate to that of the Persian Islamic Republic.
Osama has his uses, but remaining either underground or in women's clothing is an additional burden to his self-induced insanity to one day destroy the Saudi monarchy in Saudi Arabia and replace it with his religious control of the people under the Quran.; Reply to this comment

by lleeaafflleeaaff June 15, 2010 3:35 PM EDT

. claro, i like to invest in the globes full of lunch muffin toddler backers, not in the globes full of lunch muffin toddlers . the son and the father both refuse to have anything to do with me . but that's all well . because they no longer leave little memos for me whereever i travel . instead, now, i leave memos for them that they'll see few of as they don't get around near so well anymore . the enemy makes me, the voters vote it, the fund folk fund it, and i just like to, and my anti-tractor is that fast and furious . besides, it's just an endless ocean of eternal story books on a endless library shelf littered with endless eternal cosmic war babies' butts of limitless spank me fetish . they'd wish for themselves another me to replace me if i abandoned them .

i think our summers and falls linger alot here, not so much our winters and springs . i think northward, they have winters and springs that linger and summers and falls that don't . i think of machines and how little trees make the oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange . how the seaweeds and such do too . and how little plankton or just mildew can be bred and new breeds sorted out, some that might feed us when we drought and some that might help us breath on mars, or swim in the sun, and some to help lingering seasons when things like global warming and cooling, things like jupiter and saturn and venus and just volcanos and quakes and other belches cause unseasonable seasons

. i like mathmaticians, the old ones with the languages of the ages . the ones with calculators and dresses . i like them especially when they try lounging around in no dress, but obviously, it's their custom . i like them especially when they put down their calculators and roll in the erasable inks and chalks and just free write their possibilities . i don't understand them, comprehend them . like i don't know how a drawing type or painting type makes figures . but i'm hypnotized and sometimes even eroticized by their passions with their crafts and trades . i like common med math tune dance art craft skit kit map enthusiasts too . but the old ones with their old body languages are by far more interesting and addictive .

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by lleeaafflleeaaff June 15, 2010 3:40 PM EDT: i tried to go to jail once, i spent four hours getting forced into a man's clothes, and ignorant ape's jungle, i felt more educated and diseducated in less a time than ever before . and, by then, the road to the jail house was clearly visible . and boring . they said i probably would find the jail more like the outside world than anything they just did or anything between here and the jail . they essentially lacked the funding and human huvan resouce to actually mop messes and jail criminals, so they bided their time converting the willing in such a way as not to convert them . they just wanted to show someone a hard way to another life style, and then leave it to the self to appreciate the hard way, to find and easy way, or to forget changing at all


by ToolMangler1 June 15, 2010 5:10 PM EDT: This poster appears to be a porno/pedophile with delusions of poetic grandeur.

"dances and songs of war babys tortured always turn me on,"
"hike naked dance dressed hike dressed dance naked porn songs,"
"the soldiet girls and soldiet boys of war"" ..
it's true, most folk in forever do not play whack-a-lazy naked lusty dopey free flower girl at all the street corners in forever (i named that after a game i saw in a arcade once decades ago called wreck-a-bus) .. anyway, i only play it sometimes and i don't do it to hurt anyone .. most of the eternal cosmic war babies with the limitless spank-me fetishes wear 'smack my ass with all you got' signs not just because they are eternally turned on by cosmic ass-whoopings,

Instead of doing run-on sentences and spamming page after page of commentary with the same stuff day after day, Just speak his/her/its piece and be done with it. I despise show-offs that attempt to confuse or mock their observers for they have neither enlightened nor informed the target audience.

"autumn987, brdliky6, leafsntrees, oakishpines, birdlikebld, morphndol, morphndol8, , rnbwprsm01,
rnbwprsm13, edblvgtbl5, edblvgtbl11, edblvgtbl13, tongueleafy, peachfernpine, sapswtgm, rvrswdsscps, porevessel and lleeaafflleeaaff are one and the same."


by John_Merritt June 15, 2010 3:10 PM EDT: Well after reading the CBS version of this story and comparing the one FOX put out 20 minutes ago, the newer one claims much more detail about Mr. Faulkner. Apparently he is a 50 yr. divorced man who does not attend church, is religious, but carries a Bible with him all the time. Apparently for inspiration because he is a dialysis patient who has suffered much but still has a tremendous passion for man and mankind.

His "Last Hurrah' is what they called it, because he wanted to bring justice to those who had done our country wrong, and was willing to go any measure to acheieve this. I hope they can send him back to the US so he can receive the medical treatment he needs and also provide our authorities any information he might have gained during his stay.

Good luck Mr. Faulkner and never give up 'your faith' that God has your back. You did not fail, you just got stalled.; Reply to this comment


by KipsterKipster June 15, 2010 2:09 PM EDT: Rambo, this is Murdock, we're glad you're alive. Where the hell are you? Give us your position and we'll come to pick you up!; Reply to this comment

by mary-miami June 15, 2010 1:22 PM EDT

Pakistan has never been a real ally of the US. India, on the other hand, has typically sided with us. If Pakistan really would want to show some kind of "friendship" to the US, they would leave the guy alone.

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by miami_don June 15, 2010 2:10 PM EDT: I agree Mary. But, since they didn't - the least they could do is let him bunk up with ten Americans they are holding who wanted to join al Queda. I think one at a time would be best.

by nyc_logic June 15, 2010 11:51 AM EDT

The difference between a hero and a moron is their success rate. If this guy would have succeeded he would be looked upon as a hero. But since he didn't....well you know the rest. A sword dude?...Yea, that's a new high on the moron meter.

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by warsux June 15, 2010 2:06 PM EDT: and our military with all its technology and 10 years has done what?


by miami_don June 15, 2010 2:13 PM EDT: Actually it is a good thing they caught him; which translates to - he wasn't smart enough to get away from the police and he didn't stand a chance on his own.

by Saahmed1 June 15, 2010 10:15 AM EDT

Bwahahahaha! The only thing sadder than this too-much-Spike-TV-watching fool's delusions is the support that all you armchair tough guy racist readers feel for him. Pathetic -- but hilarious, nonetheless.

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by mokey22 June 15, 2010 11:41 AM EDT: I can tell by your screen name you're from the middle east. I'm sure you support Bin Laden, Hezbollah, Hamas and any other terrorist organization. When Bin and his merrymen are wiped out you'll laugh out the other side.


by miami_don June 15, 2010 2:21 PM EDT: by mokey22 June 15, 2010 11:41 AM EDT
I can tell by your screen name you're from the middle east. I'm sure you support Bin Laden, Hezbollah, Hamas and any other terrorist organization. When Bin and his merrymen are wiped out you'll laugh out the other side.
----
Of course you and Saahmed1 are not the seme person? Why do you keep putting our enemies and Israels enemies in the same bag?

Until Bibi is gone why should we pretend Israel is our ally - our spoiled child perphaps. Thinking in terms of Israel supporting U.S. efforts in the Middle East is a real streach.