November 2002
TIME: Welcome to al-Qaeda Town
November 25, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / ANGURADA with reporting by MARK THOMPSON / WASHINGTON
On a remote stretch of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan sits a thriving bazaar crammed with grimy shops and simple houses. Locals know it as Angurada, but it might as well be called al-Qaeda Town. In an audacious show of force by an organization that is supposed to be on the run, al-Qaeda, according to U.S. and Afghan officials, has claimed the hamlet as its own and is using the redoubt as a base for attacks on U.S. forces. Strangest of all, this is happening in Afghanistan proper, where the U.S. military has, in theory, freedom of action to move against al-Qaeda.
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On a remote stretch of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan sits a thriving bazaar crammed with grimy shops and simple houses. Locals know it as Angurada, but it might as well be called al-Qaeda Town. In an audacious show of force by an organization that is supposed to be on the run, al-Qaeda, according to U.S. and Afghan officials, has claimed the hamlet as its own and is using the redoubt as a base for attacks on U.S. forces. Strangest of all, this is happening in Afghanistan proper, where the U.S. military has, in theory, freedom of action to move against al-Qaeda.
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TIME: Will They Strike Again?
November 25, 2002
By NELLY SINDAYEN / MANILA; ANDREW PERRIN / BANGKOK; SIMON ELEGANT / KUALA LUMPUR; LISA CLAUSEN / SYDNEY; MICHAEL WARE / KABUL; TIM McGIRK / ISLAMABAD; MEENAKSHI GANGULY / NEW DELHI
At first sight, the video might be a routine tv ad for a luxury hotel, the camera dutifully following a waiter as he arrives at a room carrying a tray. But when the guest opens his door, the waiter whips out a pistol and calmly proceeds to blast the head off a papier-maché dummy. In other scenes, masked fighters abseiling down the walls of the "hotel" with grenades leave no doubt what this is: a training manual for an assault on a resort complex. The video, one of a batch of al-Qaeda tapes found outside Kabul this month, is a chilling reminder of the range of targets al-Qaeda and its proxies like Jemaah Islamiah are preparing to attack. With each new arrest -- last week Indonesian investigators nabbed Bali bomber Imam Samudra while the U.S. announced it had apprehended al-Qaeda's Persian Gulf chief Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri -- authorities learn more about how to thwart global terrorism. TIME consulted intelligence officials and security experts for this survey of Islamic terrorist networks and the threat level in Asia's possible target countries.
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At first sight, the video might be a routine tv ad for a luxury hotel, the camera dutifully following a waiter as he arrives at a room carrying a tray. But when the guest opens his door, the waiter whips out a pistol and calmly proceeds to blast the head off a papier-maché dummy. In other scenes, masked fighters abseiling down the walls of the "hotel" with grenades leave no doubt what this is: a training manual for an assault on a resort complex. The video, one of a batch of al-Qaeda tapes found outside Kabul this month, is a chilling reminder of the range of targets al-Qaeda and its proxies like Jemaah Islamiah are preparing to attack. With each new arrest -- last week Indonesian investigators nabbed Bali bomber Imam Samudra while the U.S. announced it had apprehended al-Qaeda's Persian Gulf chief Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri -- authorities learn more about how to thwart global terrorism. TIME consulted intelligence officials and security experts for this survey of Islamic terrorist networks and the threat level in Asia's possible target countries.
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TIME: Losing Control?
November 18, 2002
By TIM McGIRK and MICHAEL WARE
If the U.S. has won the war in Afghanistan, maybe somebody should tell the enemy it's time to surrender. The bad guys are still out there, undetectable in the rocky, umber hills of eastern Afghanistan--until they strike, which they do with growing frequency, accuracy and brazenness. These days American forward bases are coming under rocket or mortar fire three times a week on average. Apache pilots sometimes see angry red arcing lines of tracer bullets rising toward their choppers from unseen gunners hidden in Afghanistan's saw-blade ridges. Roads frequented by special forces are often mined with remote-controlled explosives, a new tactic al-Qaeda fighters picked up from their Chechen comrades fighting the Russians. With phantom enemy fighters stepping up attacks and U.S. forces making little headway against them, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, felt compelled to acknowledge last week, "We've lost a little momentum there, to be frank."
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If the U.S. has won the war in Afghanistan, maybe somebody should tell the enemy it's time to surrender. The bad guys are still out there, undetectable in the rocky, umber hills of eastern Afghanistan--until they strike, which they do with growing frequency, accuracy and brazenness. These days American forward bases are coming under rocket or mortar fire three times a week on average. Apache pilots sometimes see angry red arcing lines of tracer bullets rising toward their choppers from unseen gunners hidden in Afghanistan's saw-blade ridges. Roads frequented by special forces are often mined with remote-controlled explosives, a new tactic al-Qaeda fighters picked up from their Chechen comrades fighting the Russians. With phantom enemy fighters stepping up attacks and U.S. forces making little headway against them, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, felt compelled to acknowledge last week, "We've lost a little momentum there, to be frank."
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