The Washington Post is reporting that captured al-Qaeda fighters being held in Pakistan are providing little assistance to U.S. Intelligence.

According to Pakistani sources with access to what went on in the prison, the Arabs imprisoned here told the American investigators they last saw bin Laden about Dec. 14, four days before they were captured trying to sneak across the border from Afghanistan.

That was shortly after bin Laden is believed to have recorded his most recent videotaped declaration. It was also when U.S.-allied Afghan guerrillas were closing in on al Qaeda redoubts in the Tora Bora region of eastern Afghanistan under a barrage of U.S. bombing, routing al Qaeda defenders and sending them fleeing.

But, the sources said, during the four nights of questioning, the Arab captives steadfastly refused to say where bin Laden was at the time, keeping back the one detail that might lead U.S. forces to the main target — and the most elusive — of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism. As far as could be learned, they also refused to provide clues to any escape route bin Laden might have had in mind, keeping the mystery of his whereabouts intact.

And this with boiling hot pickles shoved into their nethers! Talk about intestinal fortitude…

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