Tribes could be bin Laden's downfall: ex-spy

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden will probably be killed or captured when some "brave souls" in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area decide to betray him, a former senior CIA official said on Thursday.

Henry Crumpton, who led the CIA's operations in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, said local chiefs sheltering the militant leader were likely to abandon him one day due to disenchantment with his agenda and its perceived failure to bring a better life.

"I think Osama bin Laden will be captured or killed, and that mostly likely will be because of a decision by local authorities," said Crumpton, now a private security consultant.

"Local tribal authorities I believe either will generate the intelligence, and/or will participate directly in his demise," he said on the sidelines of a conference held by the EastWest Institute global security think tank.

The al Qaeda leader has been hiding out since the September 11 attacks against U.S. cities. U.S. officials believe he is probably not far from his last reported whereabouts, the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border.

He has defied all efforts to find him despite a $25 million U.S. reward offer.

The possibility of betrayal has been dismissed at times by commentators who say Pashtuns, whose lands straddle both sides of the border between the two countries, live to a code of honor that demands unfailing hospitality toward guests.

But Crumpton said bin Laden would eventually become vulnerable to disappointment among his hosts at his perceived failure to bring concrete improvements in daily life.

"If you look at bin Laden or al Qaeda all they offer is a tactic of terrorism -- they are not offering the local population economic development or education. In fact they are destroying it."

"They're just not offering any hope, and I think that people understand that and, although intimated and fearful, there will be brave souls (who will act against bin Laden) and my guess it that's how he will end."

MISSILE STRIKES

Crumpton, who worked for the CIA as a clandestine officer for more than two decades, said the key to persuading local people to deny safe haven to bin Laden and his associates was to help them gain a capacity to shape their own development.

"Once you have some modicum of security then development must be based on the needs of the people. You address issues that the enemy is exploiting, whether it is poverty, whether it's lack of education, there's always some unmet expectation.

"They won't do development the way America might or the way some of our NATO allies might, they'll have their own way and they'll have a more important stake than anyone else. "

Pakistan says one important impediment to the counter-terror effort in the lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border is a controversial policy of U.S. missile strikes, saying they are a violation of sovereignty.

Pakistan's civilian government and the army have complained that the U.S. strikes from Predator drones are counterproductive and have fanned an Islamist insurgency across northwest Pakistan.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)