Posted on 02/23/2004 4:58:04 PM PST by blam
US commandos 'closing in' on bin Laden
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 24/02/2004)
The top-secret US commando team that spearheaded the capture of Saddam Hussein is heading for Afghanistan in the latest sign that the hunt for Osama bin Laden is coming to a head.
Battle-hardened units from Task Force 121 are being shifted as intelligence reports increase on the possible whereabouts of the terrorist leader, according to an article in the Washington Times by a reporter known for his access to the special forces.
Most of the "high-value targets" from Saddam's regime have been caught or killed, Pentagon officials told the paper. "Iraq has become more of a policing problem than a hunt for high-value Iraqis. Afghanistan is the place where 121 can do more."
Two long, frustrating years after bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, escaped US forces and their Afghan allies, American commanders are now openly talking about the likelihood of their capture this year.
It is impossible to overstate the important of catching bin Laden to the American public, whose anger and grief over the September 11 attacks has not faded.
It would provide a spectacular election-year boost for President George W Bush, whose Democratic opponents criticised the Iraq war as a distraction from the hunt for al-Qa'eda. George Tenet, the CIA director, paid a secret visit to Islamabad this month as American and Pakistani troops began the largest manhunt for al-Qa'eda leaders to date.
President Pervaiz Musharraf of Pakistan, who has survived two recent assassination attempts linked to al-Qa'eda, has started deploying thousands of troops in the highly sensitive tribal region of Waziristan, on the Afghan border.
American forces are mounting a parallel spring offensive on the Afghan side of the frontier, aiming to create what Lt Gen David Barno, the US commander in Afghanistan, described last week as "a hammer and anvil" effect to trap terrorist fugitives between the two armies.
Pathan tribal elders have been given an ultimatum to hand over Taliban and al-Qa'eda fighters and America has been publicising its offers of large rewards for the capture of bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other al-Qa'eda leaders.
Defence sources concede that specific intelligence about bin Laden's whereabouts might prompt a special forces raid across the Pakistani border.
Task Force 121 combines navy Seals and commandos of the army Delta Force, an elite group modelled on the SAS, as well as CIA paramilitaries.
Though regular troops from the 4th Infantry Division were given public credit for dragging Saddam from his "spider hole" in December, the task force played a key role in the capture.
Taking Bin Laden alive may prove the greatest challenge of all. Taliban fighters in Pakistan recently told Newsweek magazine that mines and high explosives are laid around each hiding place adopted by "the Sheikh", not only for protection but also to ensure that he can be "martyred" quickly, and his body destroyed.
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