Word: civilian
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...mistaken killing of up to 40 Afghan civilians by a U.S. warplane Monday is a lesson in the difficulties in rounding up the scattered remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda: The enemy has dispersed and taken shelter within the civilian population, in order to wage a guerrilla war against the U.S. and the government in Kabul. If that results in accidents in which U.S. forces kill civilians, the Taliban and al-Qaeda hope to use those incidents to build support for their cause in the local population. Thats the reason Monday's incident makes life difficult...
...that may not be easy. Mullah Omar and his men are clearly able to move with ease in their home territory. Many Taliban fighters remain in the area, having melted into the civilian population last fall in the face of overwhelming U.S. military might. In last year's rout of the Taliban, most enemy fighters were neither killed nor captured; they simply dispersed. Many went back to their villages and signed up with local warlords engaged in longstanding turf battles. Others may have seen the onset of the U.S. offensive as the cue to revert to the guerrilla tactics their...
...flea," wrote Robert Taber in his 1965 textbook on (and for) guerilla warfare. "And his military enemy suffers the dog's disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with." Not only that, the guerrillas take shelter in the civilian population, knowing that any "collateral damage" incidents will potentially alienate that civilian population from the guerrillas' enemies...
...most Americans), the years before World War II were anything but golden; they were a time when mothers died of toxemia after pregnancy, when families drifted across the Midwest in search of a good job?any job?and men thought themselves lucky to get $30 a month from the Civilian Conservation Corps. Kerrey reminds us of something that too many histories of the 1950s overlook: for those who lived through those sunny years, the sense of security was wonderful precisely because it was so novel...
...Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced Padilla's arrest Monday to coincide with the detainee's transfer from civilian to military custody, says Padilla trained with al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, and that the government has "very significant information" linking Padilla to "al-Qaeda and very serious terrorist plots." According to Bush administration officials, at the time of his arrest Padilla was in possession of plans to construct and detonate a "dirty bomb...