Sword-wielding bin Laden hunter asks for reward

ABC scores the inevitable post-OBL interview with Gary Faulkner, the Colorado man who achieved international notoriety last year when he was arrested by Pakistani authorities trying to cross the Afghan border armed with only a samurai sword on a religious inspired quest to kill the al Qaeda leader. Faulkner response to the news is basically, "I loosened it":

"I had a major hand and play in this wonderful thing, getting him out of the mountains and down to the valleys… Someone had to get him out of there. That’s where I came in," Gary Faulkner of Greeley, Colorado, told ABC News. "I scared the squirrel out of his hole, he popped his head up and he got capped.

"I’m proud of our boys, I’m very proud of our government… They were handed this opportunity on a platter from myself," he said.[…]

Faulkner dismisses U.S. officials who said bin Laden was believed to have lived in the compound for as many as six years.

"He hadn’t been living there for no damn six years," Faulkner said. "I absolutely flushed him out."

While Faulkner says his quest was never about the money, he does feel he’s entitled to part of the $25 million reward for bin Laden’s capture. 

Samurai warriors aside, it appears likely that no one will get the bounty since bin Laden was caught through a mix of intelligence gathering and info given up by prisoners in U.S. custody rather than a tip-off. 

Perhaps future fortune seekers can set their sights on Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to WikiLeaks cables, his most recent known residence was "a good place owned by a simple old man.”