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Hot pizzas led to Osama ally
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
U.S. spy planes tracked takeout delivery to his jungle hideout
Hot pizzas lead to kidnapper
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 14/09/2002)
A reputed ally of Osama bin Laden was betrayed after United States spy planes tracked a takeaway pizza to his jungle hideout.
According to previously secret Filipino military files shown to the Wall Street Journal, Abu Sabaya - a leading member of the Abu Sayyaf rebel network linked to bin Laden - was initially located by signals from his satellite telephone.
But the joint US-Filipino intelligence team needed to know if he was still holding his latest hostages, two American missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, and a local woman, Deborah Yap.
Their solution was a mixture of down-to-earth human intelligence, and American high technology.
Philippines Marines intelligence officers had penetrated the courier network which kept Sabaya supplied with pizzas, soft drinks and burgers from a fast food chain.
An American unmanned aerial drone followed the thermal image of a delivery of hot pizzas as they were carried by boat from the harbour of Zamboanga to the small coastal village of Sibuco, near Sabaya's base.
Colonel Juancho Sabban, who led the search, said: "We had to make sure the pizza was hot. Otherwise, we would have lost the trail."
The pizza trail could only lead the troops so far - its heat images were invisible in the thick jungle. But it proved a decisive breakthrough, because it narrowed the area to be searched.
Filipino troops went into the jungle and found the rebels, but Mr Burnham and Miss Yap were shot dead by their captors in the ensuing battle. Mrs Burnham was wounded in the leg.
Sabaya escaped, but was killed during a gunfight at sea two weeks later.
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/14/wpizza14.xml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Hot pizzas lead to kidnapper
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 14/09/2002)
A reputed ally of Osama bin Laden was betrayed after United States spy planes tracked a takeaway pizza to his jungle hideout.
According to previously secret Filipino military files shown to the Wall Street Journal, Abu Sabaya - a leading member of the Abu Sayyaf rebel network linked to bin Laden - was initially located by signals from his satellite telephone.
But the joint US-Filipino intelligence team needed to know if he was still holding his latest hostages, two American missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, and a local woman, Deborah Yap.
Their solution was a mixture of down-to-earth human intelligence, and American high technology.
Philippines Marines intelligence officers had penetrated the courier network which kept Sabaya supplied with pizzas, soft drinks and burgers from a fast food chain.
An American unmanned aerial drone followed the thermal image of a delivery of hot pizzas as they were carried by boat from the harbour of Zamboanga to the small coastal village of Sibuco, near Sabaya's base.
Colonel Juancho Sabban, who led the search, said: "We had to make sure the pizza was hot. Otherwise, we would have lost the trail."
The pizza trail could only lead the troops so far - its heat images were invisible in the thick jungle. But it proved a decisive breakthrough, because it narrowed the area to be searched.
Filipino troops went into the jungle and found the rebels, but Mr Burnham and Miss Yap were shot dead by their captors in the ensuing battle. Mrs Burnham was wounded in the leg.
Sabaya escaped, but was killed during a gunfight at sea two weeks later.
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/14/wpizza14.xml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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