It looks like al Qaeda was increasingly worried about the possibility that anyone who could have contact with Western authorities might inadvertently lead Americna commandos or drones to terrorist hideouts. This letter from Osama bin Laden, published by the Army's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, highlihts the fear that he and other al Qaeda officials had that journalists and other visitors to al Qaeda's strongholds may have been involuntarily marked with 'tracking chips' allowing the U.S. military to track ther wherabaouts.
The letter even refers to how terrorists released from American custody were tracked -- leading to the capture of al Qaeda operatives. This could simply be fear and paranoia on the behalf of bin Laden and his crew or it could be legit (that's a GPS chip shown above, pretty darn easy to hide.
You have to keep in mind the possibility, though remote,that the journalists may be involuntarily monitored, in a waythat we or they do not know about, either on ground or by satellite, especially Ahmad Zaydan, and it is possible that a tracking chip could be put into some of their personal effects before coming to the meeting place to conduct any business with them, or to conduct an interview with one of the brothers, and as you know Ahmad Zaydan has interviewed a number of the Taliban leaders and also with Shaykh Sa'id Allah, have mercy on his soul, and the Americans did not kill any of them or know his location from surveying Ahmad Zaydan except that it may be amatter that might attract their attention, as they identified the house where the brothers Abu 'Umar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir Allah, have mercy on their souls, were staying in, across satellites, by monitoring some brothers who were released from prison and who went to them after that. And based on that, it would be prudent and a defeat to the enemy to avoid any meetings with journalists
