Pakistan campaign fruitful, but no bin Laden
Published Sunday, November 14, 2004
KARWANA MANZAI, Pakistan (AP) - On a strategic mountaintop not far from the Afghan border, soldiers man machine guns in dry stone bunkers and the boom of rocket and artillery fire occasionally echoes in the distance.
The Pakistani commanding general gestures toward the arid hills on the horizon where his troops have advanced in the last two days and makes a bold prediction: South Waziristan - a haven for al-Qaida-linked guerrillas who fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban - will be pacified by the year’s end.
But Maj. Gen. Niaz Khattak has another, more disappointing message - there’s no sign of the man that Pakistan’s U.S. allies in the war on terror really want him to catch: Osama bin Laden.
"So far, I have no indication whatsoever of Osama bin Laden. There has not even been a rumor Osama bin Laden is in the area," Khattak told reporters flown to the region yesterday by helicopter.
South Waziristan long has been regarded as one of the most likely hiding places for bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, although there has been no solid intelligence to support that. Khattak did not rule out the possibility they are here but considered it very unlikely.
Between 7,000 and 8,000 Pakistani forces have been deployed in a three-pronged offensive this week in the eastern reaches of the rugged region, the latest in a series of bloody military operations that have left at least 170 Pakistani soldiers and nearly 300 militants, including 100 foreigners, dead since March.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Nov/20041114News015.asp
THANKS, MUCH.