The vice is tightening on Osama bin Laden

Verum Serum reports: Are We About to Capture Bin Laden?

Hot Air expands on the story: Breaking - U.S. forces attack senior AQ leader’s hideout in Afghanistan?

Have those two big Taliban birds already sung? The arrest of Mullah Akhund, the group’s number three, wasn’t announced until Thursday afternoon, but according to another Blotter article he was taken into custody “only hours” after Cheney left Pakistan for Afghanistan on Monday. So conceivably, they’ve been working him over for days. Which leads to two questions: (1) why would his arrest have been announced publicly before the U.S. had a chance to act the intelligence he’s (presumably) giving them, and (2) wouldn’t all senior AQ leaders have gone to ground immediately after word of the arrest got out, knowing that the U.S. could soon have a bead on them?

Update: This is either a major scoop or a complete bust because there’s nothing about it anywhere else on Google News that I can see. NBC has, however, confirmed with the Taliban that the two commanders have been arrested. And contrary to prior reports, they weren’t arrested together; one was arrested “more than a week ago” (with an accomplice) and gave up the other.

Update: I saw this last week when it was first posted but it had since completely slipped my mind. Thanks to John from Verum Serum for reminding me. U.S. officials sounded unusually certain about Osama’s whereabouts in that testimony. More cause for hope for today’s raid?

Update: Still more cause for hope from Afgha.com — reportedly, Osama bin in this area before.

Let's hope they have him.