[blam]

...slipped through the Pakistani security cordon. I wonder how much that cost.

[rageaholic]

Eh, just a dog and pony show for Musharif's guest Colin Bowel. Pakistan is a fake ally, they ain't gonna give us OBL.

[mewzilla]

...Pakistani security cordon.

Talk about an oxymoron. Well, I can't believe we weren't expecting this and planned accordingly...

[blanknoone]

I don't think it cost him anything...he has the loyalty of the Pakis.

[2banana]

Just across the border in Afghanistan, 10,000 US troops have massed for Operation Mountain Storm,

There are about 10,000 US troops in ALL of Afghanistan...maybe the author means US, Coalition and Afghan troops...

[Free ThinkerNY]

According to villagers, the ranks of fighters in Waziristan included Arabs, Chechens, Afghans, Uzbeks and Chinese Uighurs.

According to the Left, all Muslim grievances have to do with Israel and American imperialism. The Big Lie lives.

[Cold Heat]

Hardly worth speculating about this stuff until our FBI and CIA analyze the detained terrorist claims.

This entire Islamic enterprise is based on disinformation and the news media is it's mouthpiece.

All media.

My chain cannot be jerked any further.

[Godfollow]

Well if you ask me, it's another spoke in the wheel of terrorism that has been kicked out. Say what you want about the P's ability to get the big one or #2, as long as they keep kicking out spokes, that'll do...

[McGavin999]

I don't care who he is, if he's a terrorist he needs to be dead. I think the Pakistanis are doing a fine job.

[endthematrix]

"Arabs, Chechens, Afghans, Uzbeks and Chinese Uighurs..."

It's a funky party going on up there. Strange bedfellows with a common goal: Your slavery to ALLAH and the mullahs who decree in their interests. Kill them.

[Rams82]

From debka..."Pakistan admits bin Laden’s No. 2 Zuwahiri was not in area of battles in Waziristan as first claimed. DEBKAfile's sources reported Friday that chief of Pushtun Ahmadi tribal federation is leading the rebel side. Harm to him would spark wholesale tribal war offensive against Pakistan."

Supposedly TS will HTF in Pakistan if they kill this guy...but then again its debka

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ping

[RIGHT IN LAS VEGAS]

A goat short stay!

[Uncle George]

ONLY ONE DAISY CUTTER WOULD HAVE ENDED IT IN FIVE MINUTES.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ping!

[endthematrix]

Tohir Yuldash knew of Sept 11! http://www.angelfire.com/space/pearly/htmls/bush-ignored.html (bbc and independent articles)

"Mr Muttawakil learnt of the coming attacks on America not from other members of the Taliban leadership, but from the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yildash (Tohir Yuldash). The organisation was one of the fundamentalist groups that had found refuge on Afghan soil, lending fighters for the Taliban's war on the Northern Alliance and benefiting from good relations with al-Qa'ida in its fight against the Uzbek government.

According to the emissary, Mr Muttawakil emerged from a one-to-one meeting with Mr Yildash looking shocked and troubled. Until then, the Foreign Minister, who had disapproved of the destruction of the Buddhist statues in Bamian earlier in the year, had no inkling from others in the Taliban leadership of what Mr bin Laden was planning.

"At first Muttawakil wouldn't say why he was so upset," said the aide. "Then it all came out. Yildash had revealed that Osama bin Laden was going to launch an attack on the United States. It would take place on American soil and it was imminent. Yildash said Osama hoped to kill thousands of Americans."

[endthematrix]

"Just across the border in Afghanistan, 10,000 US troops have massed for Operation Mountain Storm"

This appears not to be a coincidence! September 7, 2002 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=331115

"Another US official was also present ­ possibly from the intelligence services. Mr Katz, who now works at the American embassy in Eritrea , declined to talk about the meeting. But other US sources said the warning was not passed on.

A diplomatic source said : "We were hearing a lot of that kind of stuff. When people keep saying the sky's going to fall in and it doesn't, a kind of warning fatigue sets in. I actually thought it was all an attempt to rattle us in an attempt to please their funders in the Gulf, to try to get more donations for the cause."

The Afghan aide did not reveal that the warning was from Mr Muttawakil, a factor that might have led the Americans to down-grade it. "As I recall, I thought he was speaking from his own personal perspective," one source said. "It was interesting that he was from the Foreign Affairs Ministry, but he gave no indication this was a message he was carrying."

Interviewed by The Independent in Kabul, the Afghan emissary said: "I told Mr Katz they should launch a new Desert Storm ­ like the campaign to drive Iraq out of Kuwait ­ but this time they should call it Mountain Storm and they should drive the foreigners out of Afghanistan. They also had to stop the Pakistanis supporting the Taliban."

The Taliban emissary said Mr Katz replied that neither action was possible. Nor did Mr Katz pass the warning on to the State Department, according to senior US diplomatic sources.

When Mr Muttawakil's emissary returned to Kabul, the Foreign Minister told him to see UN officials. He took the warning to the Kabul offices of UNSMA, the political wing of the UN. These officials heard him out, but again did not report the secret Taliban warning to UN headquarters. A UN official familiar with the warnings said : "He appeared to be speaking in total desperation, asking for a Mountain Storm, he wanted a sort of deus ex machina to solve his country's problems. But before 9/11, there was just not much hope that Washington would become that engaged in Afghanistan."

Officials in the State Department and in UN headquarters in New York said they knew nothing about a Taliban warning. But they said they would now be looking into the matter."

[Gothmog]

I'm not trying to be too pollyanish here, but maybe we wanted to allow some escapes. I remember reading some weeks ago that an unnamed AQ type was quoted as saying that OBL was safely in Afghanistan, so the Pak offensive was going to be a waste.

If so, then maybe our intel guys figure that by flushing out some high-level AQ types they will get more intel pointing to OBL's actual location -- like cell phone calls for help, etc.

Just a thought.