LOS ANGELES TIMES: Pakistani police say Gary Faulkner of Denver was trying to make his way into Afghanistan. Faulkner's brother says he's determined to catch the Al Qaeda leader on his own.
Reporting from Denver and Islamabad, Pakistan — The U.S. has spent nine years and billions of dollars trying to hunt down Osama bin Laden amid the rugged, lawless badlands along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
But according to Pakistani officials and his own family, Gary Brooks Faulkner of Denver thought he could get the job done himself, with a pistol, a dagger and night-vision goggles.
Faulkner talked with family members about his quest, and at Denver International Airport on May 30 he was asked what his family should do if he came back from Pakistan in a body bag.
Faulkner, 50, and his younger brother Scott discussed Gary's desire for cremation. Scott snapped a farewell picture on his BlackBerry. Then Gary, a construction worker with failing kidneys, boarded a plane for Pakistan.
On Tuesday, Pakistani police said they had arrested Faulkner in a remote, mountainous region near the Afghan border.
"He's not insane," Scott Faulkner told reporters in Denver on Tuesday. "He's just very passionate."
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Scott said, his brother — a devout Christian with no military training — has taken at least six trips to Pakistan to find Bin Laden.
"After Osama mocked this country on 9/11 and it seemed that the military wasn't doing enough, it became his passion, his mission, to track down Osama and kill him or bring him back alive," said Scott Faulkner, a physician. He described his brother, who is divorced with one adult son, as charming, chatty and in fine mental health. >>> Nicholas Riccardi and Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times | Wednesday, June 16, 2010
