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The secret war On the North-West Frontier, soldiers are trying to tighten the noose around bin Laden's forces. But in Europe and America, there is no clear enemy to fight - yet every expert knows that a terrorist atrocity is coming Mark Townsend in Tangier, John Hooper in Madrid, Greg Bearup in Peshawar, Paul Harris in Washington, Peter Beaumont in Baghdad, Antony Barnett, Martin Bright, Jason Burke and Nick Pelham in London Sunday March 21, 2004 The Observer There were shadows in the rocks. As the 12 US Special Forces soldiers arrived at a remote mountain region in eastern Afghanistan...

U.S. Creates Task Force to Target Al-Zarqawi Friday, September 24, 2004 WASHINGTON — U.S. military planners have assembled a special task force charged with finding and neutralizing Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search), U.S. officials told FOX News. Known as Task Force 626, the operation is assembled along the same lines as that of Task Force 121 (search), which searched months before capturing Saddam Hussein and is still hunting Usama bin Laden. Task Force 626 is smaller than its higher-profile sibling but is similarly made up of CIA operatives, special operations troops from the Navy and the Army, and...

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...

Where's Bin Laden? U.S. special forces in Afghanistan are going native in their hunt for al-Qaeda's No. 1. A TIME exclusive By MICHAEL WARE/NANGALAM The men of Camp Blessing know they are bait. They dangle far from the formidable, heavily fortified perimeters of other U.S. bases in Afghanistan. Instead of the hundreds or thousands of troops that are in the large encampments, there are only a dozen Green Berets from what is known as Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 936 and a smattering of Marines. But they are dangling far from safety to attract a big catch. "This is Osama bin...

SAS joins hunt for OsamaBy Michael Smith and Peter Foster (Filed: 20/03/2004) Britain has sent 100 SAS soldiers to Afghanistan and the Americans have asked it to send hundreds more elite troops to support an intensified push to capture Osama bin Laden, defence sources said yesterday. The SAS force was seen passing through Bagram air base, north of Kabul. An official at the base, the headquarters of allied special forces in Afghanistan, said it was on its way to the mountainous border with Pakistan to take part in Operation Mountain Storm against al-Qa'eda and Taliban militants. Defence chiefs are considering...

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...

Accd to Col. Hunt on O'Reiley, US NAVY SEALS believe they have killed Osamas right hand man. Let's hope it's all true! If so I wonder if the rats would be willing to go along with another special declaration in congress saying the world is a safer place with this guy dead and gone...

LAHORE: Task Force 121, a conglomerate of American intelligence agencies and military personnel, will likely infiltrate Pakistan and try to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden if the flushing action pinpoints Bin Laden, who is believed to be moving in the country’s semi-autonomous tribal areas, a The Washington Times report said on Monday. Task Force 121, the secret man-hunting unit formed for the war on terrorism, is a blend of warriors, aviators, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers and deep-cover intelligence collectors who nabbed Saddam Hussein and now hope to catch Bin Laden. “This is tightening the sensor-to-shooter loop,” said a...

<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>

Pentagon officials have described their planned spring offensive against Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters as a "hammer and an anvil." The description suggests part of the operation will be aimed at capturing or killing Islamic militants along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, while other troops block their escape routes through the mountains. Kandahar, Afghanistan; 12 March 2004 (RFE/RL) -- According to some reports, the spring offensive in Afghanistan by U.S. forces will be the largest since Operation Anaconda two years ago near the southeastern border with Pakistan. "Our goal also is to defeat the Taliban if it decides to confront us, which it...

Using powerful software called Analyst's Notebook that helps to piece together data on criminal and terror networks, U.S. military and intelligence officials are increasingly confident they are narrowing Osama bin Laden's whereabouts, Newsweek reports in the March 15 issue. Key to the search is "accumulated humint," or human intelligence, says one insider. Other officials tell Newsweek that an increasing number of "data points" -- reports of sightings -- have created an ever-clearer picture of bin Laden's area of operation as he appears to shuttle between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now they've focused that picture to the point where they have been...

March 15 issue - Admirers of Bill McRaven like to tell a story of his courage and grit. Not against the enemy, but against the legendarily ruthless Dick Marcinko, a gung-ho Navy SEAL commander in the Vietnam era who used to swallow sacs of cobra venom and boast that "killing is my mission." Marcinko once ordered McRaven, then a young lieutenant on the super-elite SEAL Team Six, to perform "some questionable activities," recounts a former Special Forces commander. McRaven refused and "would not back down." (Marcinko did not return phone calls seeking comment.) "McRaven was a hero among all the...

LANCASTER - The 101st Airborne brigade commander whose "Screaming Eagle" Division troops ended the horrendous careers of Uday and Qusay Hussein puts it simply: The United States is safer today, more than two years after 9-11, with American forces fighting terrorists in Iraq rather than on home soil. On Tuesday as voters streamed toward polling booths, veterans from virtually all service organizations in the Antelope Valley trooped to Lancaster City Hall to greet Col. Joseph Anderson, commander of the 2nd Brigade, 502nd Infantry Regiment. Mayor Frank Roberts proffered a ceremonial "Key to the City" to Anderson and his wife, Beth,...

Unconventional means and methods of warfare, using Special Forces who infiltrate by stealth and deception, are not just the province of terrorists and those bent on harming the West and America. The United States has used such forces from the American Revolution to the present. When able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. … Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. –...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush has approved a plan to intensify the effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reports. The newspaper said on Saturday the plan would apply new forces and new tactics to the task of hunting down bin Laden, and take advantage of better intelligence and improving weather along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The main force in the new effort is Task Force 121, a covert commando team of Special Operations forces and CIA officers that was involved in the capture of ousted Iraqi President Saddam...

SAS joins fresh bid to snare bin Laden Jason Burke, chief reporter Sunday February 29, 2004 The Observer (UK) American and British forces have launched a dramatic new effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. SAS detachments will join thousands of US troops - including a 'super-secret' special forces unit transferred from Iraq - and contingents of Afghan soldiers in a huge sweep of mountainous border areas where the terrorists are believed to be hiding. The push will be the biggest such operation for 18 months. Attempts to find the fugitives last...

Bin Laden 'On The Run,' US Official Says Michael Kitchen Islamabad 28 Feb 2004, 15:13 UTC A top U.S. anti-terrorism official says al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is on the run,<./b> amid what officials say is an intensifying hunt for fugitive members of the terror network. The U.S. official says he believes Osama bin Laden will be captured soon. Ambassador J. Cofer Black, coordinator for the State Department counter-terrorism office, say the United States and its allies will find Osama bin Laden. "I feel confident that it will be sooner rather than later, although I'm not going to speculate on...

The top secret international commando group which tracked down Saddam Hussein is being transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan to spearhead the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Task Force 121, a 1400-strong unit drawn from the U.S. army's Delta Force, Rangers and Green Berets, U.S. navy Seals, and attached elements of British and Australian SAS and Canadian special forces, will be used as the cutting edge of an offensive aimed at netting or killing top al Qaeda fugitives. The unit, which may be renamed before deploying on the Afghan side of the frontier with Pakistan's lawless tribal lands, is moving in...

<p>February 24, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has dispatched the elite commando force that hunted down Saddam Hussein to Afghanistan for a new operation aimed at getting Osama bin Laden, officials said yesterday. Military sources confirmed that members of the shadowy Task Force 121, the unit that conducted the high-tech search for Saddam and his henchmen, have recently begun operating in the remote mountainous region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where bin Laden and key al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives are believed to be hiding.</p>

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...