Word: combatant
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...longer than ten days. Pakistani officials who have seen the devastation in these mountain valleys say the death toll could surpass 50,000, and many thousands more have been injured and left homeless. Most likely, says one U.S. military source, McFadden and the others will return to their perilous combat duties in Afghanistan, and other choppers will be diverted to Pakistan from U.S. bases and aircraft carriers in the Gulf, where they are serving as vital backup to the Iraq war. That would put yet another burden on the U.S.'s thinly stretched resources in its two battle theaters...
...couldn't help but look down, searching for bad guys," says McFadden. "I mean, every day we're getting shot at." The gunner knows a thing or two about that. Over the past three years, he and his crew have done back-to-back combat duty tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this was different. McFadden and his crew were sent on a humanitarian mission, and that's why the Blackhawk was stripped of its two machine guns...
...mission comes at a difficult time for U.S. commanders in Afghanistan: Pakistan needs American choppers for rescue work, but the war against the Taliban is back on the boil and U.S. casualties are mounting. So the same choppers are needed for combat missions back in Afghanistan, too. Says one Kabul-based U.S. official, "We've sliced away some of our capacity in Afghanistan. So far, it hasn't impeded the war on terror-but it will if it goes past another ten days...
...attacks are far more ominous than these determinedly stoic reactions might suggest. What they demonstrate is that something fundamental has changed?that the terror threat, both in Indonesia and beyond, has mutated into a new and more elusive creature that may be far harder to combat. In 2002, the operation involved more than a dozen individuals who spent months and tens of thousands of dollars assembling nearly a ton of explosives. This time, police speculate that only six plotters, including the suicide bombers, may have been involved. Their equipment? A few sticks of TNT, some sacks of ball-bearings, nine...
...ARRESTED. ABDUL LATIF HAKIMI, spokesman for Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime; in Quetta, Pakistan. Boastful but possessing no combat experience, Hakimi frequently contacted reporters to issue statements from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and to make often-unsubstantiated claims of Taliban successes against U.S. forces. The Afghan government, which welcomed Hakimi's arrest and requested his extradition, has long complained that Taliban leaders have been able to find sanctuary in Pakistan...