Posted on 12/07/2001 2:57:53 AM PST by Israel
Friday, December 7, 2001
FROM DEBKA INTELLIGENCE FILES
Two pieces of fresh and definitive nuclear intelligence have U.S. Special Forces frantically searching the Tora Bora cave complex of east Afghanistan and triggered a major terror alert inside the United States, the third since the attack on New York and the Pentagon. In Afghanistan, the U.S. military -- combing through the Tora Bora mountain cave complex 300 miles northeast of Kandahar for Osama bin Laden, his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and 1,000 al-Qaida fighters -- were ordered to switch their priorities around. Their top objective now is to locate al-Qaida's weapons of mass destruction -- including nuclear devices -- in a desperate race against the clock. According to intelligence sources, some 3,000 special forces commandos from the United States, Britain, Germany and Russia are currently scouring the cave warren of Tora Bora -- which means black dust -- for suspected weapons stores. The special forces personnel operating in the region are attired in protective suits and carry equipment to counter threats from radiation and biological or chemical agents. It has been declared a no-go zone for journalists -- even those attached to the U.S. military. A senior U.S. intelligence source familiar with the Tora Bora operation said the target area from Jalalabad to the Marines' Reno base south of Kandahar, has been cleansed of all cameras and media correspondents. The images appearing on television screens of summer-like conditions at Tora Bora come from archived footage. At present, the edges of the area north of Kandahar are dusted with snow, and winter is raging in north, northwest and western Afghanistan, encumbering U.S. intelligence-gathering and air operations. The latest intelligence reports in U.S. hands claim that al-Qaida chiefs removed their nuclear, biological and chemical weapons arsenal from secret hideouts in Kabul to Tora Bora six days in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. That information persuaded Russian, Pakistani and Northern Alliance intelligence that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri went somewhere else, anxious to remove themselves from harm's way anywhere near a site where weapons of mass-destruction might explode. Military sources report that because of the bad weather, sorties by drones and B-52 bombers and F-18 warplanes over Tora Bora and territory south of Jalalabad are intermittent. U.S. air operations are also disrupted in such areas as Paktia and Lugar in the southeast. A further downturn is forecast by meteorologists in the days to come, with heavy snowstorms threatening Jalalabad in the east. Those forecasts persuaded President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. military chiefs that no time must be lost in the search for al-Qaida's nuclear weapons -- particularly in view of the second piece of alarming intelligence reaching Washington Nov. 27, primarily from Pakistan. Bin Laden and his partner, al-Zawahiri, are now reported to be planning to take advantage of the slowdown in U.S. air activity forced by the inclement weather to complete their preparations for massive pre-Christmas terrorist strikes in the United States, including a possible nuclear or radiological weapon attack. The target period referred to was between Dec. 5 and Dec. 20. Al-Qaida's operational teams were described as standing by at the various departure points, some waiting only for the delivery of explosives, others just for their last order to go. Bush dispatched CIA Chief George Tenet urgently to Islamabad to establish the credibility of this intelligence data with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the heads of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence service. According to sources, Musharraf showed Tenet documents and first-hand witness accounts collected in the past two weeks by Pakistani military intelligence officers who had discovered and entered underground stores around Kabul, in which high levels of nuclear radiation were detected. The Pakistani agents also spent large sums of money to buy from Kabul locals descriptions of the men in charge of the stores and anything they may have picked up about the type of goods cached there. They came up with a description of dark-colored, cone-shaped, ultra-heavy containers, about 4 feet long, which they were given to understand were radioactive. The guards, identified as a special al-Qaida unit of foreigners, Egyptians, Saudis and Chechens, spoke to no one. Their commanders communicated directly with bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. According to sources in Islamabad, Musharraf advised the CIA director to go to Kabul himself and verify the information firsthand. They report that Tenet took this advice and paid a secret visit to the Afghan capital Sunday, Dec. 2, under the protection of U.S. and Russian special forces units. With the help of interpreters, he and his assistants interrogated the Pakistani agents' sources directly. After six hours in Kabul, Tenet called the White House to confirm the Pakistan report, adding that it tied in with previous intelligence attesting to nuclear activity in the Tora Bora complex. Washington's order to switch the objectives of the Tora Bora offensive went out accordingly at the beginning of the week. A nuclear terror alert was declared in the United States Dec. 4. American armed forces in Afghanistan are in a race against the weather, too. The heavy snows expected around Dec. 10 to 12 will make their task almost impossible, forcing them to wait for the spring thaw. If Tora Bora is left in Taliban and al-Qaida hands, it would serve as a forward base for guerrilla forays to harass U.S. forces at Kandahar and Jalalabad and loosen their grip. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri would win a breather of five long months safe from large-scale U.S. assault.
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High of 30 degrees in cities is winter weather to me.
In mountains not covered by the weather channel it is probably even colder.
Your criticism on this point is trivial.
THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH TYPING IN CAPS WITH NO PUNCTUATION IS THAT PEOPLE WILL NOT READ YOU CLOSELY OR AT ALL SINCE IT IS HARD ON THE EYES AND BECAUSE OF NET MANNERS THE READER USUALLY ASSUMES THE POSTER IS SHOUTING THIS CAN BE VERY ANNOYING AND DETRACTS FROM THE SUBSTANCE OF YOUR MESSAGE HOPEFULLY YOU WILL LEARN FROM THIS POST BACK TO YOU AND YOUR NEXT MESSAGE CAN BE SOMETHING I WILL BOTHER TO READ
ROFLMAO!!!
Check the satellite. No precip. No snow. Simply cold weather is not an impediment for military operations. But it's not even cold. The forecast high for Jalalabad is in the sixties. In the west, where the winter weather is supposedly raging, the forecast high temps are 55-65 degrees. Golf weather, except the Afghanis don't play golf.
You Debka-supporters will go to great lengths to downplay Debka's mistakes - but now they've been caught lying. If you think that is trivial, it speaks volumes...
No, they mean carbon carbon. Like, when you are trying to emphasize a point, you will go "She is VERY VERY intelligent".
Well, they are saying this is especially carbon-y carbon.
Yeah, silly me. Expecting accuracy from the print media. What was I thinking?
In all fairness, there is another way to interpret this statement. ;-)
Then why do we worry that Xlinton gave away our nuclear weapons secrets?
True enough. And I can see why they wouldn't give him a protective suit, either. But we still have the lies about the weather and George Tenet's trip to Kabul...
Yeah, but they meant the OTHER George Tenet. The super secret one. And the Afghanistan they are referring to is the OTHER Afghanistan. The one near the top of Canada.
It's not EMPHASIS when EVERY letter is in caps. It's YELLING!
Tell that to the Space Shuttle challanger.
I am not a Debka supporter, I've never posted one of their articles. I seldom go to their site to look. I do not believe everything they write.
I dislike the antiDebka hysterics.
I swear, you guys bump up debka stories more than anyone else.
Your debka obsession is strange.
Debka is better than many many sites that post here but there is no similar mass outbreak of hysterical ranting like there is for a debka post.
I can't believe that we would allow ANY of our top people to go into Afghanistan. If the trip happened, I don't believe it would be necessary to send Tenet.
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