American commanders are less confident of catching Osama bin Laden this year.  There is apparently fear that, while bin Laden is on the run, there are enough ways to bypass police and troops to get bin Laden to Pakistan's cities (where many al Qaeda supporters live), or to the coast and out of the country. Pakistan's coast is constantly patrolled by coalition ships and aircraft, but there is too much ship traffic to examine every vessel, especially the hundreds of smaller ships that operate there. Where would bin Laden go? He still has loyal, and heavily armed, kinfolk in Yemen. It's true that bin Laden does not have many places where he could find refuge, but he's still got a large area to run around in.