Los Angeles: An American on a solo mission to hunt down Osama bin Laden is on the final leg of his trip home to Colorado, 10 days after authorities found him in the woods of northern Pakistan with a pistol, a sword and night-vision equipment.
A jubilant Gary Faulkner stepped into the security check line at Los Angeles International Airport at about 7:20 p.m. Wednesday for his flight to Denver, accompanied by his brother, sister and mother.
"It's incredible to have him home," said Faulkner's sister, Deanna Martin.
Wearing a gray shirt, sandals and beige chinos, and with his long gray hair in a pony tail, Faulkner said he was well cared for during his confinement and that Pakistani medical workers administered dialysis to treat his kidney disease.
Asked if he planned to return to the region, Faulkner said, "Absolutely," adding cryptically, "You'll find out at the end of August."
Faulkner arrived hours earlier on an Emirates Airlines flight from Pakistan, where he'd been detained since June 13. He told officials he was out to kill the al-Qaeda leader. He was then moved to Islamabad, and his brother told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he was being released by the Pakistani government without charges.
Faulkner, of Greeley, Colorado, said organizing his trip "took a lot of money and a lot of time." Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, he spoke to reporters about his trip and his intent to get bin Laden.
"This is not about me. What this is about is the American people and the world," he said in comments aired on KTLA-TV. "We can't let people like this scare us. We don't get scared by people like this, we scare them and that's what this is about. We're going to take care of business."
Gary Faulkner is an unemployed construction worker who sold his tools to finance six trips on what relatives have called a Rambo-type mission to kill or capture bin Laden. He grew out his hair and beard to fit in better.
Scott Faulkner told reporters last week that his brother wasn't crazy, just determined to find the man America's military has failed to capture nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks.
"Is it out of the norm? Yes, it is. But is it crazy? No," Scott Faulkner said. "If he wore a uniform and called himself special ops, would he be crazy?"
State Department spokesman P J Crowley told reporters in Washington that the family would have the best information on Faulkner's case. Faulkner, two department officials have said, refused to sign a waiver allowing the government to discuss his case publicly.
"In this particular case, as in all cases where we have an American citizen in custody of another country, we are in touch with that individual, we are in touch with his family," Crowley said. "We stayed in close contact with him and with his family throughout this, and we are gratified it was resolved rapidly."
Faulkner left Colorado on May 30. Scott Faulkner, a physician in the northeastern Colorado town of Fort Morgan, dropped off his brother at the airport and wasn't sure he'd see him again. But he and other relatives have insisted that Gary Faulkner left the U.S. unarmed, had a valid visa for Pakistan and was guilty of no crime while there.
Indeed, relatives have said they hope the trip encourages more people to look for bin Laden.
"Now there's going to be hopefully a renewed effort to get this guy — he's still wanted, and he's still out there," Scott Faulkner said last week.
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