Bustard.

This is coolbert:

Again, you get an idea for a blog entry from the most interesting places and very germane within the context of those kidnapped Qatari royals.

"For Saudis and Pakistan, a Bird of Contention"

"For decades, royal Arab hunting expeditions have traveled to the far reaches of Pakistan in pursuit of the houbara bustard — a waddling, migratory bird whose meat, they believe, contains aphrodisiac powers."

APHRODISIAC POWERS! LOVE POTION NUMBER NINE! THAT HUNT IN THE DESERT DURING WHICH A NUMBER OF QATARI ROYALS WERE KIDNAPPED WAS INDEED AN FALCONRY EXPEDITION THE QUARRY OF WHICH WAS THE HOUBARA BUSTARD?

"Little expense is spared for the elaborate winter hunts. Cargo planes fly tents and luxury jeeps into custom-built desert airstrips, followed by private jets carrying the kings and princes of Persian Gulf countries along with their precious charges: expensive hunting falcons that are used to kill the white-plumed houbara."

The Arab royal their treasure chests bulging with gold but nonetheless still enamoured with that image of the hunt and the life of the bedu [bedouin]. Royals and elite of the Arab world to include at one time OSAMA BIN LADEN!

"In recent times the hunts have also played a role, albeit unwitting, in the United States’s war against Al Qaeda."

"Osama bin Laden took refuge at a houbara hunting camp in western Afghanistan in the late 1990s, by several accounts, at a time when the C.I.A. was plotting to assassinate him with a missile strike."

Houbara today, Osama tomorrow. So was the plan but it did not transpire. But the idea was sound!

coolbert.