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Afghanistan
CIA launches at senior al-Qaeda
2002-02-09
  • A CIA-launched missile strike this week in a former al-Qaeda stronghold in eastern Afghanistan appeared to have hit its target -- a tall man who was being treated with great deference by those around him. An official said the individual was believed to be a senior al-Qaeda official but would not say whether suspicions centered on Osama bin Laden. "He was clearly someone who was senior," the official said. "But beyond that I can't take you any further than that, and there are a number of senior al-Qaeda guys who are taller than average." Air Force General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than 50 US troops were inserted in the Zhawar Kili area to determine who was hit in the strike but had not yet reported on any finds from the site.
    Doubt if it was Binny. Still, it's not a good time to be a tall, bearded man in Afghanistan.
    It would be an interesting footnote in DoD history if OBL got done in by a weapon system that didn't exist 4 months ago. Rumsfeld has been trying to torque the Pentagon into the transformation mode, and putting Maverick AGMs on Predator recon planes was verboten until after 11 Sept. Getting the recon systems reclassified as a weapons system was bureaucratic nightmare, and hopefully putting away OBL will be indicative of how the Pentagon might be starting to transform, albeit kicking and screaming all the way.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 2/9/2002 1:40:28 PM
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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