Pakistan: "Top NATO Official" (Petraeus?) Blames Islamabad for Sheltering Bin Laden

Sometimes Twitter misses the story.

The sub-140-character flash this morning was "Bin Laden Hiding in Northwest Pakistan". And I'm thinking, "This is news to whom?"

But then I click the link, to CNN's website,  just to confirm the bleedin' obvious: "NATO official: Bin Laden, deputy hiding in northwest Pakistan". Still nothing to break a yawn.

Then, in the third paragraph, the significant news jumps out: "Al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services, the official said."

Whoa. Someone from NATO just threw petrol on the fire: Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are not only surviving but free from imminent challenge --- "The general region where bin Laden is likely to have moved around in recent years ranges from the mountainous Chitral area in the far northwest near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley which neighbors Afghanistan's Tora Bora."

The deadly duo can put their feet up, not just because of the "tribes" in the "autonomous" areas beyond Islamabad's control --- the story-line for most of the past eight years --- but because some people in Islamabad are supporting them.

All right, but how significant is this official? Keep reading....

"He has access to some of the most sensitive information in the NATO alliance....The NATO official...has day-to-day senior responsibilities for the war."

Speculation amongst military-watchers is that the military man singing to CNN is three-star General David Rodriguez, based in Kabul, or General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Whoever it is, he has some heavy influence, and he is feeding the media in a mood of ominous urgency:

Although there has been security progress, he pointed to an internal assessment that there are 500,000 to 1 million "disaffected" men between the ages of 15 and 25 along the Afghan-Pakistan border region, he said.

Most are Afghan Pashtuns and make up some of the 95 percent of the insurgency who carry out attacks just to earn money, rather than fight for a hard-core Taliban ideology.

The official said it is now absolutely vital for the Afghan government to address the needs of this group with security, economic development and jobs in order for the war to end, and for Afghanistan to succeed.

"We are running out of time," he said.

Whether or not President Obama's declared withdrawal date of July 2011 constitutes that "running out of time", it's pretty clear that his military don't like the schedule.

But even more significantly in the short term, how far is the US military willing to punish its supposed Pakistani ally in the press? How much heat will be added to the political tension with Islamabad?