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UP to 55 militants may have been killed in Pakistan's biggest ever assault against al-Qaeda targets, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said today. "Twenty foreign terrorists have been killed during the operation," Hayat told a rowdy session of parliament, where Islamist MPs vented fury at the operation and the deaths of civilians. "When the dust settles we may find 30 to 35 more bodies." Six bodies have already been transported to army headquarters in Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, and are undergoing DNA tests. At least 24 of the militants were killed on the first day of the military operation on...

Army 'can't go to war for five years' By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 25/03/2004) Britain's Armed Forces will not be able to mount another operation on the scale of the Iraq war for another five years, the Chief of Defence Staff said yesterday. Gen Sir Michael Walker told the Commons defence committee that the Army in particular would not be able to recover from operations in Iraq until 2008 or 2009. "I think we have already accepted that we cannot do another large-scale operation now," he said. "We are unlikely to be able to get to large-scale much before...

AP Exclusive: U.S. forces set up base in Afghan mountains for al-Qaida hunt ON THE AFGHAN BORDER (AP ) -- Using bulldozers to slice bunkers and a helicopter landing pad out of a mountainside, U.S. special operations forces dug in on a peak overlooking Pakistan - fortifying the area for the intensifying battle against al-Qaida and Taliban forces. Special operations forces - including the Army's Green Berets, the Navy SEALs, and CIA operatives - are playing a secretive but leading role in the battle against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects believed to be hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan's...

ON THE AFGHAN BORDER - Using bulldozers to slice bunkers and a helicopter landing pad out of a mountainside, U.S. special operations forces dug in Tuesday on a peak overlooking Pakistan - fortifying the area for the intensifying battle against al-Qaida and Taliban forces. Special operations forces - who include Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and CIA operatives - are playing a secretive but leading role in the battle against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects believed to be hiding out in the mountains of Pakistan's tribal areas. Remote posts like this one near the Afghan city of Orgun, scratched out of a...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Thousands of Pakistani soldiers backed by artillery and helicopter gunships made limited progress Friday advancing into a cluster of farming villages where 400 to 600 suspected foreign militants have been surrounded near the border with Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. The officials said they continued to believe that a senior figure, possibly Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be trapped with the surrounded group. But it appeared Friday that blasting the militants out of fortified positions they have occupied in hundreds of fortress-like family compounds could take days, and dozens of lives. Brigadier Mahmood Shah, director of...

KARACHI - The plan to eradicate the Afghan resistance was straightforward: US-led coalition forces would drive from inside Afghanistan into the last real sanctuary of the insurgents, and meet the Pakistani military driving from the opposite direction. There would then be no safe place left to hide for the Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants, or, presumably, for Osama bin Laden himself. The plan's implementation began with the launch of operation "Mountain Storm" around March 15. But the insurgents have a plan of their own, which they have revealed to Asia Times Online. Conceived by foreign resistance fighters of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and...

KABUL, March 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri are safe and in Afghanistan, not neighboring Pakistan where an intense manhunt is under way, according to a Taliban spokesman Friday, March 19. Speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP) by satellite phone from southern Afghanistan, Abdul Samad dismissed speculation by Pakistani officials that Al-Zawahiri could be surrounded in the Pakistan border district of South Waziristan, saying he was " 100per cent" sure the Al-Qaeda number two was safe. "All these reports about Ayman Al-Zawahiri being surrounded in Pakistan are not true, they are just propaganda...

Britain has sent about 100 special forces to Afghanistan as the hunt for Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri heats up, an airport official says. The official, who asked not to be named, says the British soldiers arrived at Kabul International Airport on March 10 and left the same night for an unknown destination. British special forces "looking like SAS" embarked from their plane and waited on the tarmac until nightfall before taking off in their vehicles. A spokesman for the British embassy in Kabul says he is unable to comment on operations involving special forces. Britain...

<p>ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistani forces have surrounded an estimated 200 fighters they suspect are protecting a "high-value" al Qaeda leader near the Afghanistan border, and are asking them to "surrender immediately," sources told CNN.</p> <p>Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said he suspects the fighters are protecting al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.</p>

WASHINGTON - The Pakistani military was pounding a mud-walled fortress last night where a "very senior" Al Qaeda leader - possibly Osama Bin Laden's No. 2 - was holding out against a Pakistani siege. American intelligence officials were cautious about who might be inside the mountain stronghold, but Pakistani sources said they believe it was Bin Laden's top general, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and he may be wounded. Al-Zawahiri, nearly always at Bin Laden's side during his taunting videotapes, helped create Al Qaeda and was considered the brains behind its operations. His capture or death would be a major blow to...

Thursday March 18, 2004 12:31 PM By AHSANULLAH WAZIR Associated Press Writer WANA, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani troops and paramilitary forces using artillery and helicopter gunships launched a new assault Thursday against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects in a tribal region near Afghanistan, two days after a fierce assault that left dozens dead. The new push began in Azam Warsak, Shin Warsak and Kaloosha villages in South Waziristan, the tribal region that borders Afghanistan, said Brig. Mahmood Shah, the chief of security for the area. Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan said there have been casualties in the new offensive, but he...

<p>Task Force 121, the secret manhunting unit formed for the war on terrorism, is a blend of warriors, aviators, CIA officers and deep-cover intelligence collectors who nabbed Saddam Hussein and now hope to grab Osama bin Laden.</p> <p>"This is tightening the sensor-to-shooter loop," said a senior defense official. "You have your own intelligence right with the guys who do the shooting and grabbing. All the information under one roof."</p>

Three Taliban commanders have been arrested and 12 of the movement's fighters killed as the American military launched an operation in southern Afghanistan aimed at capturing militants, including Osama bin Laden. The leaders were captured in Zabul, a lawless province in the south where remnants of the ousted regime are fighting for control by bribing and intimidating the local population. The operation, called Mountain Storm, is backed by air support and was launched a week ago as the US-led coalition intensified its hunt for bin Laden along the Pakistani border. The Taliban commanders were captured during a joint US-Afghan search...

KABUL: US-led forces have launched a sweeping new hunt in Afghanistan’s remote southern and eastern mountains where Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, including Osama Bin Laden, are believed to be in hiding. The operation, codenamed “Mountain Storm”, began on March 7 and involved troops from the 13,500-strong US-led force backed by air support, US military spokesman Lt Col Bryan Hilferty told a news briefing on Saturday. “We believe that this will help bring the heads of the terrorist organisations to justice by continuing to place pressure on them,” he said. Asked whether the operation could lead to the arrest of...

Sun 14 March, 2004 06:50 SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Three Taliban commanders have been arrested in a U.S.-led sweep of southeastern Afghanistan aimed at crushing members of the former regime and their al Qaeda allies, an Afghan army officer says. At least 12 Taliban fighters have been killed in the week-old offensive which U.S. officials hope will snare al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Rebels fired rockets into the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday wounding two people, a Pakistan-based news agency said. The three Taliban commanders were arrested on Friday in a raid on a house in Zabul...

  Coalition in Afghanistan Wraps Up Mountain Blizzard American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 13, 2004 -- Operation Mountain Blizzard has successfully ended in Afghanistan, and Operation Mountain Storm has begun, coalition officials in the Afghan capital of Kabul announced in a news release today. In the two months of Mountain Blizzard, the coalition conducted 1,731 patrols and 143 raids and cordon-and-search operations. They killed 22 enemy combatants and discovered caches with 3,648 rockets, 3,202 mortar rounds, 2,944 rocket- propelled grenades, 3,000 rifle rounds, 2,232 mines and tens of thousands of rounds of small-arms ammunition, the news release said....

<p>WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has launched a new offensive in Afghanistan (search) called "Operation Mountain Storm" aimed at rooting out elements of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Pentagon officials said Friday.</p> <p>Though Mountain Storm is a new operation, it is also a continuation of a series of efforts that began last summer and fall. Those operations, including one called Mountain Resolve, aimed to drive terrorist elements out of the south of Afghanistan and some areas of the north, and back toward the border with Pakistan (search).</p>

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces have launched a sweeping new hunt in Afghanistan's remote southern and eastern mountains where Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be in hiding. The operation, codenamed "Mountain Storm", began on March 7 and involved troops from the 13,500-strong U.S.-led force backed by air support, U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Hilferty told a news briefing on Saturday. "We believe that this will help bring the heads of the terrorist organisations to justice by continuing to place pressure on them," he said. Asked whether the operation could lead to the arrest...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The U.S. military on Saturday announced a sweeping new operation across troubled southern and eastern Afghanistan, with the aim of destroying al-Qaida and the Taliban and ultimately reeling in Osama bin Laden. The offensive comes as Americans step up their hunt for the al-Qaida leader and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, who are believed to be hiding out in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. "We believe this will help bring the heads of the terrorist organizations to justice, by continuing placing pressure on them," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a U.S. military spokesman. The...