ros joing m n from washington, david ignatius of the "washington post," steve coll of the "new yorker" magazine and via satellite from istanbul turkey is dexer, filkins, i'm pleased to have them on this program to talk about the extraordinary event. dexter, first to you, then steve then david. the biggest question is how could the pakistanis not have known and if they did know how could they have so believed that the united states wouldn't discover? >> well, this is a much larger question that's been hanging over the war there since001 which is which side of the pakistani... whi side are the pakistanis really on? it's part of a very elaborate double game they've been playing for many years which the united states is aware of which is on one hand the pakistani government very covertly supports the taliban and on the other hand they cooperate with about $3 billion a year that they get in return. when you look at what happened there and where that compound was it really... we may never know the answer but certainly the circumstantial evidence suggests that somebody in the pakistani milit

author and journalist steve coll has written extensively on the unfolding terror battle, and is president of the new america foundation. and terrorism analyst farhana qazi specializes on afghanistan and pakistan for the booz allen consulting firm. she is also a senior fellow at the center for advanced studies on terrorism. let's start by talking about this combination of military action and intelligence action. when you weigh the two things in this particular case how much of which was involved? >> first you need intelligence to collect about where your target is located. that was the hardest task in this case. it took years as margaret reported to even get to the point where they could survey a particular house and assess who was in it. once there was enough information to strike, then the use of the joint operations or the j-soc forces reflects the capacity that the united states has long possessed but has particularly built up in ten years of war, frankly in iraq and afghanistan these teams have been used again and again against other targets of lesser value than osama bin laden. >> bu

. >> ...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 acc