Osama bin Laden is still alive. His notorious group al-Qaeda is still up to evil -- or so it seems going by the reports of the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.
It is not clear who the kidnappers are, but it requires little imagination to figure out that the real force behind Pearl's ordeal is bin Laden and al-Qaeda. It hardly matters who acted as their front.
Washington must be devastated by the Pearl episode. More than three months after it began bombing Afghanistan, bin Laden remains at large much to U.S. President George W. Bush's chagrin.