Thu Mar 18, 2004 06:10 PM ET
By Hafiz Wazir
WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani troops may have cornered Osama bin Laden's number two during a major battle on the wild Afghan frontier on Thursday, top officials said. A senior government official in Islamabad told Reuters that Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's right-hand man in the Islamist network al Qaeda, may be surrounded. Another official said the trapped leader was not bin Laden, the Western world's most wanted man.
President Pervez Musharraf told CNN that the ferocity of the resistance his forces had met led generals to believe they were shielding a "high-value target." Al Qaeda fighters previously had been melting away before a Pakistani offensive of recent days but were now defending a hilltop mud fort, officials said. "A pitched battle is going on there. The way these people are resisting, we think there is someone important over there," one official said. "We think al-Zawahri may be holed up there."
In other news, A senior Energy Department official today defended research on a new
nuclear "bunker buster" and disputed critics who charge that the Bush administration is planning to move forward with development of the weapon. The department's undersecretary for nuclear security, told a House Armed Services subcommittee that research on the weapon was an important deterrent to enemies who are increasingly putting weapons and command facilities in fortified bunkers deep underground.
Time again for the Muskrat News quiz!
Match the physical location with the threat to American security it holds and the technology needed to destroy it or render it harmless.
| a: Mud Fort on Pakistani hillside | a: al-Zawahiri | a: 200 artillery rounds |
| b: Cave | b: Osama Bin Laden | b: Marine with Grenade |
| c: Secret Libyan Bunker | c: Libyan Nuke Program | c: U.S. inspectors with clipboards |
| d: Spider Hole | d: Saddam Hussein | d: Two PFCs with flashlights and M-16s |
| d: Cheesy Apartment Building | d: Uday and Qusay Hussien | d: Platoon of Airborne troopers, two Bradley IFVs |
| e: Military-Industrial Complex | e: Decline in Gigantic Government Corporate Welfare Payments | e: Bunker-Busting Nukes |
| f: Massachusetts | f: John Kerry | f: Karl Rove |
Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product.
The rest is the fakey part.
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