Zitat:Taliban Mujahideen Wage More Deadly Weekend Attacks Throughout Afghanistan
Feb 16, 2004
By Zafir Jamaal, JUS

In more weekend attacks on Coalition and Afghan forces, Taliban Mujahideen have waged several deadly attacks across Afghanistan.

Eleven missiles and three mortar rounds were launched at Khost airport on Saturday. The shock wave from the attacks could be felt in the surrounding area. Sources indicated that the attack killed four Coalition and afghan soldiers and wounded five others. The damage to the building was severe. The airport complex caught fire and the fires could be seen from the surrounding villages. The wounded were evacuated to hospitals by Medivacs and after the attack, Coalition helicopters were seen searching for attackers. No arrests have been reported.

In another bomb blast near the Khost airport on Saturday, four government officials were killed and four others wounded when a high powered explosive was placed next to the wall of the compound. No one has accepted responsibility for the attack.

In Nadir Shah Kot, Khost, an ambush on an Afghan patrol has killed two government officials while four others were wounded. And in another attack in Nadir Shah Kot, the district capital was attacked and three government officials were reported killed and five others wounded. The attack lasted for an hour and the American planes were called in to support Afghan troops guarding the city.

In Qalat, Zabol, an operation against Taliban is being carried out and innocent civilians are being arrested for the suspicion of being Taliban members. No other details are yet available.

Meanwhile in Ouruzgan in the district of Kajran, the district capital was attacked by Taliban Mujahideen which resulted in six afghan soldiers dead and eight others wounded. The Taliban also confiscated large caches of arms and ammunitions in this operation.

In another Taliban attack in Nimruz in the district of Chah Karshek, the check post for Afghan army was attacked resulting in the deaths of nine soldiers and six wounded.

In Paktika, Coalition soldiers conducting an operation against Taliban and Al-Qaida were ambushed by Mujahideen firing rockets and automatic weapons. Six Coalition forces were killed and several vehicles were destroyed in the ambush. Later on the American bombers bombed the area to flush out the attackers and helicopters evacuated the casualties.

In other attacks on afghan and coalition forces Saturday, Taliban Mujahideen killed thirteen soldiers, including one American. The attack on the Americans was due to a land mine, which killed one, and initial reports suggested wounded 3, but the Coalition authorities have since updated the number to nine.

Also in Khost, someone threw a bomb grenade inside the porn video market, destroying four shops and killing two police officers guarding the shops.

Zitat:Taliban drohen den USA
20. Feb 13:40

Kurz nachdem die Amerikaner bestritten haben, dass die Gefahr durch islamistische Milizen in Afghanistan gewachsen sei, gibt sich ein hochrangiger Taliban in einem Interview martialisch und zu allem entschlossen.

Zitat:Das Netz zieht sich zu
Razzia im Grenzgebiet von Afghanistan und Pakistan: Die USA verschärfen die Fahndung nach Osama bin Laden. Einem Bericht zufolge soll er in einem 16 mal 16 Kilometer großen Gebiet isoliert sein. Die Wahlstrategen um George W. Bush hoffen auf eine Festnahme, um dem angeschlagenen Präsidenten neue Popularität zu verschaffen.

Zitat:Pakistan intensifies aidfor US in bin Laden chase
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff, 2/21/2004

WASHINGTON -- Pakistan has dramatically stepped up its assistance to the US-led campaign to capture Osama bin Laden, deploying thousands of troops into its lawless northwestern frontier, pressuring tribal elders, and allowing American soldiers from neighboring Afghanistan to make forays across the border, according to senior Pentagon and Pakistani officials.
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Zitat:Bin Laden 'surrounded'

February 22, 2004
A BRITISH Sunday newspaper is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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Zitat:Ghost Wars : The CIA and Osama bin Laden, 1997-1999
A Secret Hunt Unravels in Afghanistan
Mission to Capture or Kill al Qaeda Leader Frustrated by Near Misses, Political Disputes
By Steve Coll
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 22, 2004; Page A01


First of two articles.

The seeds of the CIA's first formal plan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden were contained in another urgent manhunt -- for Mir Aimal Kasi, the Pakistani migrant who murdered two CIA employees while spraying rounds from an assault rifle at cars idling before the entrance to the CIA's Langley headquarters in 1993.
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Zitat:A BRITISH Sunday newspaper is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Zitat:Taliban claim responsibility for fatal attack on American reconstruction team

James Astill in Kabul
Monday February 23, 2004
The Guardian

An Australian helicopter pilot was killed and a British security officer seriously injured in southern Afghanistan yesterday after their team, working for an American construction company, was attacked by a gunman.
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Zitat:Kabul/Islamabad - Die USA und Pakistan haben einen Zeitungsbericht dementiert, wonach der Moslem-Extremist Osama bin Laden im Grenzgebiet zu Afghanistan von Spezialkräften umzingelt sein soll. Derartige Meldungen seien wenig glaubwürdig, sagte US-Militärsprecher Bryan Hilferty am Montag in der afghanischen Hauptstadt Kabul. "Wenn wir wüssten, wo er sich in Afghanistan aufhält, würden wir ihn schnappen. Wenn die Pakistaner wüssten, wo er sich in Pakistan befindet, würden sie ihn ergreifen."

Die britische Sonntagszeitung "Sunday Express" hatte berichtet, Spezialkräfte der USA und Großbritanniens hätten den meistgesuchten Mann der Welt in einem 16 mal 16 Kilometer großen Gebiet in der pakistanischen Grenzregion zu Afghanistan eingekreist. Die Fläche werde von einem US-Spionage-Satellit beobachtet, hieß es in der Meldung.

Auch ein pakistanischer Militärsprecher wies die Berichte über eine Umzingelung des Chefs der radikal-islamischen El-Kaida-Organisation in der pakistanischen Bergregion nördlich von Quetta zurück. "Dieses Gebiet liegt in der Tat in Pakistan, aber dort ist derzeit nichts los: Das Leben verläuft dort ganz normal. Sie können hingehen und es sich anschauen", sagte er bei einer Pressekonferenz. In dieser Region habe es in jüngster keinen Militäreinsatz gegeben. Auch seien dort keine ausländischen Truppen stationiert.........

Zitat:Pakistan beginnt Jagd auf al-Qaida und Taliban

Pakistanische Soldaten durchkämmen derzeit das Grenzgebiet zu Afghanistan auf der Suche nach Anhängern des Terrornetzwerkes al-Qaida und der Taliban. An der Operation sind auch Hubschrauber und paramilitärische Einheiten beteiligt.
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Zitat:AWSJ(2/23) Pakistani, US Troops Intensify Bin Laden Search
Copyright © 2004, Dow Jones Newswires
(From THE ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL)
By Jay Solomon and Zahid Hussain In Islamabad and Carla Anne Robbins In Washington

U.S. spy chief George Tenet made a secret visit to Islamabad last week as American and Pakistani troops began a major operation to hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda fugitives believed to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.
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Zitat:Gerüchte um Bin-Laden-Verhaftung

Die neue Offensive auf der Jagd nach Osama Bin Laden hat eine Flut neuer Gerüchte hervorgerufen. Während iranische Quellen melden, der Terroristen-Führer sei schon seit langem in Gewahrsam, steht die Ergreifung einer britischen Zeitung zufolge unmittelbar bevor. Die Amerikaner werden nicht müde, zu dementieren.
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Zitat:A spoof newsflash by a TV station in Lebanon saying that Osama Bin Laden had been captured in the northern city of Tripoli was taken more seriously than the programme-makers had expected.

Despite several clues onscreen that the bulletin was a joke, the LBC station was inundated with calls. (...)

Zitat:TEHRAN, Feb. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Osama bin Laden has been captured in a tribal region in Pakistan, the IRNA news agency quoted Iran's state radio as saying on Saturday.
The radio's external service, broadcast in Pushtu, said US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Pakistan on Thursday had been made in connection with the capture. (...)

Pakistani FM denies report of bin Laden's capiture

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri Saturday denied a report that Osama bin Laden has been captured in Pakistan's tribal region. (...)

US denies arrest of Osama Bin Laden

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- the United States Saturday denied news reports that Osama Bin Laden had been captured "for a long time," local media quoted a US official as saying. (...)