Word: bins
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. "America's policy choices have consequences," the Commission notes. "Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world." Bin Laden has constantly sought to justify his attacks on the U.S. in light of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hoping to shackle the widespread Muslim identification with the Palestinians to his own agenda. The war on terror is, the 9/11 Commission notes, fundamentally, a battle for the hearts and minds...
...shifted its search strategy. Out of an estimated 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, some 5,000 are scrambling through the impossible terrain in places where bin Laden might be hiding. That area is a saw-bladed mountain range 1,500 miles long. But most troops aren't just looking for him specifically. Instead, they are patrolling the border against incursions by Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Rather than trek through the vast mountainous region hoping for a chance encounter, the U.S. command is now engaged in a slow but probably more effective tactic of trying to win over Pashtun...
...result, Pakistanis doubt that the U.S. military can produce an October surprise--a scenario in which bin Laden is grabbed and Bush reaps the electoral gains. And beyond politics, Pakistani officials say they're not convinced that bin Laden really matters anymore. Says a senior Pakistani intelligence official: "For years the Bush Administration insisted that O.B.L. was running a terrorism franchise. We told them that it was not like this, that while al-Qaeda has a global ideology--hatred of America--their operations are local...
That won't play in Washington. The Administration wants Pakistan to do more to track bin Laden down but is afraid of endangering what help it does get fighting terrorism. A senior U.S. official mocked the Pakistani offensive as "7,000 to 10,000 Pakistani troops courageously battling 200 al-Qaeda guys to a standstill." As for bin Laden, he is still the figurehead, the most potent symbol of Islamic terrorism. And he still tops America's most-wanted list. --By Tim McGirk/ Kabul. With reporting by Syed Talat Hussain/ Islamabad and Timothy J. Burger/ Washington
...BIN LADEN: How cold is the trail...