Word: binning
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...persuade a number of them to oppose the Taliban and to oppose al-Qaeda than it is to in fact defeat them." With winter coming and none of the necessary deals for a future government imminent, U.S. and British strategists have reordered their priorities: they will go after bin Laden and his lieutenants now, try to erode the Taliban's ability to fight back and worry about Afghanistan's future later...
...operate in this underground labyrinth, and U.S. bombers have pounded the network. But U.S. troops could face fearsome resistance once they actually venture down there. A former mujahedin commander based in Kandahar told TIME that one possible target would be a mountain complex in southwestern Afghanistan, built by bin Laden as an al-Qaeda base because of its proximity to the Pakistani border. The camp is nestled in a canyon lined with gunners--reportedly Sudanese--who are fiercely loyal to bin Laden. "The Americans are crazy to go in there," says the Afghan vet. "The Arabs are everywhere...
...also looking for ways to defuse the combustible synergies that exist between bin Laden's organization and the Taliban. One of the Pentagon's prime targets during the air campaign has been the barracks of the Taliban's 55th Brigade at Mazar-i-Sharif. The brigade's commanders come mostly from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and its members are Arabs who were reeled into Afghanistan by bin Laden to train in terrorist camps. The "Afghan Arabs" are the Taliban's elite militants and ideological shock troops, sometimes dispatched to cajole reluctant elements of the Taliban's 45,000-man army...
Lodged, presumably, somewhere in the canyons and dugouts of an Afghan mountain range, Osama bin Laden waits for the reckoning. If he has heard by now that U.S. special forces are on the prowl, the news was delivered by a courier; Pentagon officials say they have cut off al-Qaeda's ability to communicate by phone. Last week U.S. pilots hit at least one bin Laden deputy: a bombing raid near Jalalabad killed Abu Baseer al-Masri, an Egyptian Islamic militant said to be close to bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri...
Until American commandos actually capture or kill their prized prey, guessing where bin Laden has made his cave or whether the U.S. will find it will remain a fool's game. But the arrival of ground forces on the scene has at least returned some clarity of purpose to a campaign that was starting to get lost in the fog. For now, discussions on less immediate matters--like what shape a post-Taliban government should take or whether states such as Iraq and Syria should be targeted for their past complicity in international terrorism--will be held behind curtains. Domestic...