>> tonight, two exclusive reports in this special edition of frontline. >> the united states has conducted an operation that has killed osama bin laden. >> it was extraordinary news... >> a large amount of blood on the floor. >> ...a story ten years in the making. >> we had very close sharing of information with the americans about targets. >> frontline goes inside the secret war against al qaeda and the taliban. >> when people see others, you know, going up in a puff of smoke, one hopes that will induce people to go home and sit out the fight. >> and later tonight...

>> ...a rare look at the men who say they will keep fighting for bin laden. afghan journalist najibulah quaraishi goes behind enemy lines to investigate the question of al qaeda's presence in afghanistan. >> they are said, "we are following osama bin laden. we are his men." >> these stories and more on this special edition of frontline. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. and by reva & david logan. committed to investigative journalism as the guardian of the public interest. additional funding is provided by the park foundation. dedicated to heightening public

awareness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalism fund, with a grant from scott nathan and laura debonis. additional funding for frontline's expanded broadcast season is provided by the bill and melinda s unda >> smith: for six months, frontline has been investigating the secret war that made headlines with the killing of bin laden. in december last year, i traveled across afghanistan and up to the border of pakistan, together with frontline correspondent stephen grey.

beyond this checkpoint, the campaign against the taliban and al qaeda is led by us intelligence. here, the cia is funding, arming and running secret afghan militia who guard the border, gather intelligence and launch kill raids against the militants. >> they're called "counter- terrorism pursuit teams," and they are groups of afghans very well paid, apparently pretty well trained, with guns, and they operate at the direction of the cia. these are direct-action, you know, go-to-the-ball kind of groups. they're not standing around and guarding checkpoints and, you know, street corners. they're going after people. >> smith: here, in the province

of khost, the cia unit is known as the khost protection force, or kpf. they are based in afghanistan, but their work is focused on pakistan. up at the border, we were stopped from filming them, but a former commander agreed to talk if his identity was protected.

>> smithkiths e wiaklewarak logs released in 2010 contain references to the cia's private army in khost. they fire mortars at taliban and al qaeda targets in pakistan. with the help of drones, "shadow coverage," they ambush and kill insurgent fighters crossing the border. >> smith: pakistan is supposed to be an ally in the war against the taliban and al qaeda, but us soldiers fighting along the border complain that pakistan's army supports the militants. >> from my time on the border, we experienced, on a regular basis, pakistani military complicity with the insurgency.

it could be turning a blind eye as the insurgents launch rockets at our bases. it could be allowing passage, you know, kind of right under their noses. it could be even aiding and working with the insurgents to know what times to cross the border, telling them when our patrols or when the afghan army patrols typically come. it was complicity on their part, and that piece, on an operational and a tactical standpoint, has to change in order for us to see success in afghanistan. >> smith: pakistan's army denies the accusations of complicity. they point to the sacrifices they have made in fighting militants across the tribal areas. >> this kind of insinuation or allegation is unjust. it... these are unfair allegations on pakistan. pakistan has done so much.

we have lost over 3,000 soldiers and officers in this war. we have cleared so many areas. so many al qaeda leaders have been apprehended by our intelligence agencies. of course, there was a sharing of intelligence with the other side, as well. so, with these kind of performance and record, if still someone is not satisfied, then we are not to be blamed in this. >> smith: but frontline's investigation found that taliban leaders still move freely around the country. my colleague, stephen grey, made contact with a taliban commander currently sheltering in pakistan. he arranged to meet him just outside the capital, islamabad, not far from where osama bin laden was killed. the commander told us how dependent the taliban is on sanctuary in pakistan to wage

war across the border. >> grey: is the border hard to cross?

>> frankly, we don't know on any given time or day what side the pakistanis are on. there is overwhelming evidence that, you know, even as the pakistani government takes, you know, between $1 billion and $2 billion a year from the united states government in aid, they also maintain links with the taliban and they support the taliban. and they certainly support and maintain very extensive links with the haqqani network, which is one of the most deadly insurgent groups operating in afghanistan. >> smith: the haqqani network is a major branch of the taliban, with close links to al qaeda. pakistan's military intelligence agency, the isi, has a history of supporting them. >> without their protection, without them tolerating the presence of these operatives-- to do planning, training and using pakistan ( unintelligible ) they won't be able to do these operations. so, isi knows they are doing it,

and isi is happy they are doing it because, through them, pakistan promotes her policy of afghanistan. and the policy is "taliban are ours, and they are to dominate afghanistan." >> smith: and we're going to help those who help them? >> yes. >> smith: by protecting them? >> yes. >> smith: and not arresting them? for example, one militant alleged to be close to the isi is a known leader in the haqqani network. according to us intelligence, tajmir jawad is responsible for several major attacks on targets in kabul. >> more than a dozen times, after we found out this particular operation was carried

out with blessings of tajmir, we told isi, "this guy is not hiding in mountains. he is either in peshawar or he is in this specific building with this telephone number." they never arrested tajmir because tajmir is their man. >> grey: both american and afghan counterterrorism officials told us about one senior taliban haqqani leader. he's called tajmir jawad, and they say they have constantly told pakistan's military agencies about this man, but still he appears to be living freely. >> i'll have to check back with the intelligence agencies what exactly is their information on that. but other than this, all other... these things are up in the air. there are no specifics in that. one would like only to counter if a fact is given, in detail, on the... on these issues. but in the past, a lot of these leaders have been arrested,

apprehended, and have been acted against. so, if this is a specific case, i would like to check up with the agency and then return back on that. >> smith: it's true that, over the last 18 months, pakistan has arrested some key taliban leaders, and the taliban now complain that the isi is playing a double game with them. but after spending three months interviewing numerous taliban commanders, matt waldman, published a widely discussed paper on their isi support. >> from the interviews we conducted, i would say the talibs felt that they needed the support of the isi to conduct their campaign and, of course, a campaign which has had to escalate to meet the escalation from the coalition side. the strong feeling amongst the

talibs is that the isi has very heavy influence over their movement. and they believe that that exists at a local level, and at a senior level, in terms of the leadership. what they talk about is the ability of the isi to penalize or to punish those who do not act in accordance with its wishes. >> smith: the taliban commander we interviewed said that if pakistan chose to, it could "arrest us all in an hour." >> grey: how does the pakistan government put pressure on the taliban?

>> smith: at best, pakistani pressure on the taliban has been selective. the military has left the haqqani network almost untouched in the tribal area of north waziristan. us military sources told frontline the pakistanis are unwilling to take them on. >> there are hundreds of groups operating in that area. you know, we have to mobilize resources, maybe cool down the other places, stabilize other places, and then sort of get the forces together and then go for it. so that is not an issue. >> smith: for more than five years, the united states has been pressing the pakistanis to launch an offensive in north waziristan. in the meantime, the cia has taken matters into its own hands.

remotely piloted drones have fired more than 200 hellfire missiles and bombs at targets in the tribal areas. officially, the cia does not speak about the drone war, but an agent who once ran the campaign agreed to talk to frontline. >> the calculus is really a very simple one: it's trying to kill people before they kill you. it's as simple as that. now, it may have the knock-on and potentially intended effect- - you hope-- of discouraging further militancy. when people see others, you know, going up in a puff of smoke, you know, one hopes that will induce people to go home and sit out the fight. this is very much a "kill or be killed" situation, and that's very much the dynamic that governs this. >> smith: the drone war was

initially conceived to kill only the leadership of al qaeda and the taliban, but president obama has dramatically widened the campaign. under his administration, the cia has launched nearly five times more strikes than it did under president bush. >> there are many more fighters who are launching attacks across the line into afghanistan, so, in essence, you have a much larger and much broader target set in the tribal areas, and most specifically in north waziristan. and i think that's the reason why we're seeing such a broadening of the aperture for those sorts of attacks. >> you've had just an enormous upswing, particularly since... president obama took office, on the number of predator strikes. the curve just goes straight up, and they have a lot of faith in

those predators. it is all driven by intelligence, so you have a massive network of intelligence gathering that's going on at the same time. >> smith: as the drone war escalated, the united states has had to develop a network of informers on both sides of the border. >> well, we had very close sharing of an... of information with the americans about targets, but drone operation is a very sensitive secret us operation. i don't know much about it. >> smith: but your counterparts in the cia were running these drones? >> right. >> smith: you gave them targets in the tribal areas? >> yes. >> smith: this is human intelligence on the ground? >> yes. >> smith: inside the tribal areas? >> wherever. >> smith: the drone program is said to have killed more than 1,300 militants in the last four

years, but pakistanis protest the strikes are responsible for hundreds of civilian casualties, and others warn they risk creating a new and more dangerous generation of militants. >> it's not just a matter of numbers of militants who are operating in that area; it also affects the motivations of those militants. they now see themselves as part of a global jihad. they are not just focused on helping oppressed muslims in kashmir, or trying to fight the nato and the americans in afghanistan. they see themselves as part of a global struggle, and therefore are a much broader threat than they were previously. so, in a sense, yes, we have helped to bring about the situation that we most fear.

>> smith: on sunday, us special forces flew across the border to kill the leader of that global jihad. it will be some time before we know what effect osama bin laden's death will have on the movement he inspired, and whether the pakistani authorities knew all along that america's number one enemy was hiding in their midst. >> where you surprised? >> no, i sort of always imagined

him in a big walled compound, i hadn't quite visualized him being a thousand yards from the pakistan military academy and the extent of proximity to the pakistani state. >> what does that tell us? >> certainly presents circumstantial evidence that the pakistani state had within it significant leaders, generals, or others who knew that he was there. i think the circumstantial evidence suggests as much that he was under pakistani state control as that he was hiding. >> smith: can you imagine a scenario whereby, given that he was 100 yards or so from this military academy, that the pakistanis were not aware of his presence there? >> it strains credulity that you could build a million-dollar home with heavy fortifications, 12-foot to 15-foot walls, and house within it the world's most wanted man in a city like abbottabad, which is essentially a military cantonment town, and not have anyone in the military know that he was there. i would be surprised if prosecutors didn't pursue some of those questions, given that the circumstantial evidence begs these questions about who built

this house and whose land was this and how did this... >> smith: basically, accusing pakistan of harboring bin laden. >> well, individuals. we start with the evidence. that's a justice department response to this. i think the rest of the united states government will be reluctant to challenge the pakistani state over what i presume will be its defense-- that it didn't know anything about this and that it was shocked, shocked to discover that osama bin laden was living near its west point. >> smith: why would some elements of the government want to protect pakistan from closer examination here? isn't it about time, some people will say, that the american state department got a little tougher on pakistan? >> well, certainly, some people would make that argument, but the united states also has other interests in pakistan that might trump justice in a case like this. pakistan's own internal

stability is constantly a question, and, given the size of its nuclear arsenal and the amount of fissile material lying around the country, anything that risks destabilizing the country is going to raise questions inside the us government. this has been the dilemma of us policy towards pakistan for a long time. unfortunately, they have learned that they really are seen as too big to fail by the west, and so they can take risks. >> smith: pakistan is too big to fail? >> pakistan is too big to fail, and so they can take risks that another weak government might never take because they believe that, between their nuclear deterrent and the sort of systemic risks they pose to the rest of the world, that they'll never be fully confronted over behavior that another weak state might be overthrown for. >> coming up next on this special edition of frontline: a rare look at they men who say they will keep fighting for bin laden.

>> narrator: last year, afghan journalist najibullah quraishi went behind taliban lines to report for frontline. this winter, he was back in kabul, working on another project for us. meeting with a number of his sources, he heard talk about a potentially big story: the return to afghanistan of al qaeda. >> when i was in kabul, i heard that al qaeda are back in force in afghanistan. then, i thought, "this is going to be a big story or big news." i said, "let's... let's... let's find out is it true or not." >> narrator: one source with high-level connections to the insurgency said it might be possible for him to film behind

the lines with al qaeda the source arranged for najibullah to meet up with a middleman, someone who said he had done business with al qaeda. this man agreed to arrange a meeting and take him into al qaeda territory. >> narrator: the journey would be complicated. they were instructed to change taxis several times on the road in. ( horn honking ) then, a long walk into the hindu kush mountains. >> according to... to the middle guy, we have to cross those mountains you can see on the camera here.

>> narrator: at times, najibullah would hand his camera to his companion. >> according to them, they say... they say first four and a half hours, then five hours. now, they say it... it's probably another three hours. >> narrator: they walked about six hours a day for several days. >> it's horrible, it's crazy. it's really hard to walk in the mountains like this. >> narrator: finally, the middleman brought najibullah to this valy. this was where he said the al qaeda fighters would meet them.

>> narrator: they waited. >> then, the middlemen said, "this is them, this is them." i was behind the camera, and i saw the third one, the fourth one. and the first one with the glasses, the black glasses-- first, he took his machine gun towards me, and then he comes up from his motorbike and took me from behind the camera. and first, he blindfolded me.

i thought maybe there is i thought maybe there is something wrong. maybe we are in the hand of the wrong people. >> or maybe i... i thought maybe something is wrong with our middleman. >> narrator: najibullah hadn't yet got permission to film. >> i was really scared. why are they doing like this? >> narrator: but surprisingly, the fighters did allow his companion, who they knew, to keep the camera on.

>> and they took me for another long walk. i have no idea where they're going to take me until we reached an area. i heard... they said, "sit here." but soon, he said another word, said, "we arrested him. he was filming." >> then, i thought maybe he's talking to somebody else. i heard something... they said, "open his eyes." >> narrator: the fighters had brought najibullah to meet theiv leader, this man who wanted to be known only as "khan."

>> narrator: khan was the man who had agreed to let najibullah come here. he now gave his permission for him to begin filming. khan said he is the regional commander for the mujahidin in this area. he is an afghan of arab descent whose al qaeda connections go far back. >> he was in power in... in russian time. he was a commander. ( gunfire ) first, he was a ordinary soldier working with osama bin laden in one group, and they were together. they were fighting against the russian in 1980s. >> narrator: khan's men, about 20 in this one group, are a combination of local afghan arabs and foreign-born fighters. this fighter in khan's group is

an uzbek who says he first came to afghanistan in 2001 at a time when bin laden was still in the country. >> narrator: today, the question of al qaeda in afghanistan ishe being arguedetween t ugu..s military, which downplays their numbers, and recent press reports of a growing presence in the country. for najibullah, the combination of foreign fighters and khan's long connection to bin laden convinces him that khan's men see themselves as fighting for al qaeda. >> he or his guys, they didn't say that they're al qaeda, but they are said, "we are following osama bin laden. we are his men."

>> narrator: khan told najibullah his fighters control as much as 10,000 square kilometers in this part of north central afghanistan, a claim impossible to check. but every day, najibullah would join khan's fighters on patrols though their territory. there were scenes he wasn't allowed to film-- as they gathered intelligence, collected tax payments from local villagers, sometimes purchased weapons, and apparently made preparations for resuming military operations this summer. but on one patrol, when they entered this village, najibullah was able to film what seemed to be an unusually large number of. young boys. it turned out they were here to be schooled in the local madrassa. but their education apparently went beyond the koran. >> i was filming.

suddenly, one kid, one young child came with a machine gun from the madrassa, from inside the mosque. >> narrator: when khan saw najibullah was filming this scene, he took his video camera away. >> i had my still camera in my pocket, and i managed to take some photograph of those children. they were teaching children to become a mujahadid. children age of 9 to 12, they learning how to.. how to clean a gun, how to fire, how to... how to open and close. they should go to school, they should educated, but instead they learning guns. >> narrator: khan finally returned najibullah's camera and had promised to give him an on- camera interview. najibullah wanted to ask him about his men and their

training, but khan kept putting him off. he also wanted to know about the source of khan's weapons. western intelligence has long claimed that iran has been supplying weapons to the insurgents in afghanistan, and khan's fighters told najibullah they were being supplied with iranian weapons. they rode iranian motorcycles and told najibullah they were armed with rocket-propelled grenades from iran. >> narrator: but us army experts who examined these images told frontline it was highly unlikely these particular weapons were manufactured in iran. they appear to have been made in china and bulgaria.

the fighters did take some security precautions. they parked their motorcycles at a distance from one another to help avoid detection from the air by coalition aircraft. >> there's two of them coming. >> narrator: but overall, najibullah said he was struck by how relaxed the fighters seemed about their security. they mixed freely with local villagers, who often fed them. and they took time for their version of sport. >> there was no issue about security. they were really relaxed. they were going everywhere freely in the mountains.

>> narrator: they seemed to have strong local support. at this small village community center, a local shepherd stepped forward to tell his story. >> narrator: he had many grievances against local afghan government officials, who, he said, also stole his sheep. >> narrator: najibullah asked him if it was different under the mujahidin. >> narrator: the shepherd-- he's the one under the green shawl-- went off with khan's fighters,

taking his gun with him. it had been several days now, and still najibullah was having difficulty interviewing khan's veteran fighters. khan still wouldn't do the interview he had promised najibullah, and he was restricting access to his men. >> i was chasing some of his men, and they agreed to do an interview. and then, when khan heard, he said no. i was... i was doing an interview with chechen guy, i was planning to do interview with arab guys, and khan said no. >> narrator: but later, when a group of his fighters returned from the frontlines with stories of action to tell, khan finally relented and allowed the leader of the group to do an interview. the fighter talked about a battle he said they had just fought against american forces

in the chimtal district. >> narrator: but frontline could find no corroborating information that such a battle had been fought with american forces in chimtal in march of 2011, when this interview was filmed. coalition forces said there had been no casualties near chimtal since november 2010 and that this district was "one of the most peaceful in northern afghanistan."

>> narrator: behind the scenes, you can hear khan leading the chants. in fact, he was manipulating the entire interview. >> khan was behind the camera and checking all the question and answers. and he were asking me, "before you do the question, stop the camera. ask your question. i need to know what you are going to ask." i said, "i'm going to ask how many people are here?" and khan told him, "say between 3,000 and 4,000." >> but that guy didn't hear to khan. he said 11,000 to 12,000.

>> narrator: khan had consistently claimed to najibullah that he commanded 3,000 to 4,000 fighters in this region of afghanistan coalition forces commander general david petraeus has a very different number. he recently said he believes there are no more than 100 al qaeda fighters in the entire country. najibullah reports he was permitted to film only three to four dozen of khan's fighters during the ten days he spent with them, but he says he saw many more men during his wide travels with khan's patrols. >> they were in the hills, in the mountains. i went four madrassas, and, at this four madrassas, each madrassa, there was between 50 to 60. and also, when i went to their training camp, there was more than 100 men was training-- karate-- and also they were running on the hill with one

body. and it was rough training, i saw that. and they are... out of that, i saw those people with uniform. and around maybe 400 people i saw off... off camera and... which i wasn't able to film. >> narrator: khan said he is getting ready, preparing his men for a big offensive soon, in may, against coalition and afghan forces. if najibullah would stay two months longer, khan said, he would personally take him to the front and reveal more about his operations. >> "i promise you," he said. "i promise you, in the frontline, when i kill some people, and beside them, i will stand there, i say, "this is me, this is what i'm doing, who i am." he said, "i promise you, i will expose everything."

>> narrator: while they waited, khan attended to business. he was meeting with the local taliban and had been asked to rule on a land dispute between villagers. >> khan has to be there. without khan, they cannot do anything. he has to say this is the final things. so that's why khan was there. >> narrator: khan's power seemed confirmed when he took a taliban judge aside. najibullah had overheard an earlier conversation between them. >> they were talking in front of me, but my camera was off. and khan was looking to my camera-- is it on of off. it was off. >> narrator: in the conversation, khan angrily told the taliban judge he wanted to punish a mullah who had said local villagers didn't always need to pray on fridays. >> he told to the taliban judge,

"please find this mullah for me. i want to beat him up in front of everybody. why he ordering people to not pray?" taliban judge immediately sent two motor bikes, two armed guys to find that mullah. they went for a few hours, and they came back, they said, "we couldn't find that mullah." he ordered the judge, "as soon as you saw that mullah, beat him up in front of everybody." >> narrator: najibullah wasn't allowed to film the meetings between the taliban and khan, but he was able to interview some taliban fighters about their relationship with khan's men, who they referred to as al qaeda.

>> narrator: as the taliban fighters waited around while the leaders talked, they sought

inspiration by listening to mp3s of their favorite afghan clerics. >> narrator: as days passed, the

atmosphere around khan's fighters became more threatening. although seemingly in jest, khan and his men would pretend to fire their weapons at najibullah. >> narrator: then, one night, as he was filming a convoy, the men stopped for a moment, and khan started complaining about all the filming. and his deputy issued a direct threat to najibullah.

>> narrator: and there would be more danger to come. >> narrator: the next day, najibullah attempted to film a disturbing scene. as khan and his men grabbed a local man they accused of being a spy. >> on camera, you can hear this. khan says, "he's a spy?" they said, "yes, he's a spy."

>> you can hear on the film, khan was shouting on me to stop. when i stop the camera, he called me to come back there. when i went there, i heard the... the shooting. it was... that guy was shot. and... and even khan said, "you can leave the camera, you can go and see that spy," but i... i can't see those kind of things. i cannot see somebody... someone dying in front of me. so that's why i didn't go there to see that guy, but i heard i tried to speak with the guy who shoot that guy. i said, "please interview with me."

>> and on that interview, at the end of that interview, he warned me: "if you're a spy, i... i will behead you. wherever you are, i'll go after you." >> narrator: najibullah had had enough. the next day, he left. >> khan was offering me to be there for another two months. then, i thought, if i stay for another two months, i won't be alive. what i told to khan, i said, "okay, i... i'll come back in two months time, but let me go now."

so that's how i managed to come back from there. but in reality, i won't go back. there's no way. and i'll not go again. >> frontline screened this story for several al qaeda experts, including peter bergen, national security analyst for cnn and author of "the longest war" about al qaeda. >> i promise you, i'll expose everything. >> last week, before bin laden was killed, martin smith sat down with him to talk about what najibullah quraishi reported during his encounter with khan's fighters in afghanistan. >> smith: so what... what do we make of this? what can this tell us about al qaeda? these guys don't seem to be fighting a global jihad here. >> bergen: no.

i mean, it looks like they're fighting a local insurgency. i mean, they probably want to kill some european or american soldiers if they can. they'd probably be happy with killing some afghan policemen. >> smith: so it's like a local franchise of... >> bergen: yeah, i think... >> smith: ...of al qaeda. >> bergen: yeah. i mean, there's all sorts of... you know, it's like being in the mafia. some people are made guys, some are sort of, you know... there's a very relatively small number of people who are actually really members of al qaeda. >> smith: what does it mean to be a member of al qaeda? >> bergen: well, in my view, a real member of al qaeda is somebody who's sworn a sort of religious oath of allegiance to bin laden not to... you don't swear an oath of allegiance to al qaeda; you swear a personal oath of allegiance to bin laden. it's not an easy thing to become a member of al qaeda. there are tens of thousands of insurgents in the afghan/pakistan region. there are probably, you know, if you're being generous, 400 or 500 members of al qaeda. >> smith: why would guys like these in this film be sworn to or say that they are followers of bin laden, as opposed to

joining the taliban, or simply being a local militia with their own local interests? >> bergen: yeah. i guess being a follower of bin laden maybe makes you a bigger guy and identifies you with a larger global movement. yeah, bin laden is admired by a lot of jihadis because he stuck it to the west. we've had multiple accounts of people who've joined jihadists groups, and, you know, they talk about their love for bin laden. you know, often when they make suicide videotapes before they go to what they think is their, you know, 72 virgins, they will mention that their hero was osama bin laden. >> smith: and now we have a series of popular uprisings throughout the middle east. what does it mean for al qaeda, these... this arab spring? >> bergen: i mean, i think it's about the worst news they've ever had. i mean, here is... their stated goal has always been the overthrow of these authoritarian regimes in the middle east, yet none of their people are involved in these movements, or very few. none of their ideas are being invoked by the protestors. and whatever happens-- and we don't know what will happen in any of these countries because

it's still ongoing-- it's very unlikely that al qaeda's goal of a taliban-style theocracy around the middle east is going to happen. >> smith: did al qaeda's leadership make a mistake in 9/11? >> bergen: i think al qaeda made a huge mistake on 9/11. i mean, they... they thought by attacking the united states, america would pull out of the middle east and their goal of taliban-style theocracies around the region would be... would then suddenly happen. i met with bin laden in 1997. he said, "look, we're going to attack the united states because we think it's weak. it's like the former soviet union. we remember the pullout from vietnam, the pullout from mogadishu in 1993." you know, i've interviewed people who talked to bin laden directly in the summer of 2000, saying, "look, stop it with this anti-american stuff because you're interfering with our goal of just regime change in libya and egypt and all these other places." but he... but because he runs... al qaeda's a very dictatorial organization, he just ignored them. tactically, 9/11 was a brilliant success. it was the most-watched media event in history. but from a strategic point of view, al qaeda's goals are no closer, and actually further away today than they were ten years ago.

>> smith: but here we are. >> bergen: here we are. >> next time, a frontline exclusive: inside the surge in afghanistan. >> those who were killed were bad guys. >> the strategy... >> kill and capture as many as you can and make them ask for peace. >> ...the hurdles... >> by launching those attacks, are we creating more militants than we are killing? >> ...and the timeline for getting out. >> it could take years. i mean, i don't think anybody knows. >> "kill/capture," a frontline investigation. >> frontline continues online... >> over the next five years, i think they've got some big roads to cross. >> ...with more from steve coll on al qaeda's future after bin laden. >> what al qaeda faces now is a succession struggle. >> more on us policy in pakistan. and there's much more on frontline's web site. watch more than a hundred

full programs, explore interactive timelines, and follow ongoing frontline investigations. then tell us what you think at pbs.org >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major funding is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. and by reva & david logan. committed to investigative journalism as the guardian of the public interest. additional funding is provided by the park foundation. dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalism fund, with a grant from scott nathan and laura debonis. additional funding for frontline's expanded broadcast season is provided by the bill and melinda gates foundation.

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and other frontline programs, visit our web site at pbs.org. >> frontline's "fighting for bin laden" is available on dvd. to order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-play-pbs.

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