But officials concede that sheepherders in Afghanistan often don't understand the value of $25 million, and they are looking into offering other forms of compensation. For his part, bin Laden, citing authority from the Koran, promises his followers who die in attacks on westerners a stable of virgins. Counters one official, "We can't come up with 70 virgins, but we can come up with goats."
Credit: Title is from David Mamet's Heist.
The obvious thing to offer would be asylum for the informant and his family in some nice place to spend the money, like London or New York or Paris. Naturally, granting asylum would work better if we weren't trying to get information from exactly the kind of people (Islamic religious fanatics who are at least marginally involved in terrorism) we'd rather keep out of the country.
--John