The bit about the Taliban not being an organized government so much as a movement strikes me as being very true. I saw the CNN 'Behind the Veil' over the weekend and it showed much the same thing. The different parts of the Taliban don't coordinate their actions very well. Shah was able to do so tape so much in a large part because one area wouldn't notify other areas that she was coming, or what she had been doing.

The talk of bin Laden fighting to the death sound right also. He wouldn't be doing what he does if he didn't accept that he could become a martyr. A violent death would serve his cause, a trial in the US would be far less effective, and a trial before the UN, or worse, Saudi Arabia wouldn't help the cause much at all.

The part about the Taliban panicking seems contrived to me though. The Taliban was probably unaware of the specifics of the attack before it occured, and quite possibly didn't even know that one was imminent. But they must have known that terrorist attacks on the US was bin Laden's goal, and that those attacks would bring reprisals against the Taliban.

Jay