Word: diplomats
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...originally declared Operation Anaconda a victory after al-Qaeda and Taliban forces were battered in the fighting at Shah-i-Kot, near Khost. But the bad guys in Afghanistan keep slipping away. Senior officials in Washington concede that "at least" hundreds of the enemy have crossed into Pakistan, where diplomatic and strategic considerations keep them beyond the reach of U.S. forces. Among the fleeing al-Qaeda, say intelligence sources in Islamabad, may have been Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri. He was reportedly sighted a month ago, near Anaconda's mountainous battle zone...
...difficulty in differentiating terrorist from tribal smuggler is one reason U.S. forces have refrained from crossing over. Even now, six months into the war on terror, American intelligence in Afghanistan is patchy at best. A diplomat says the U.S. still relies on informants whose main aim is not necessarily to smoke out al-Qaeda but to avenge old tribal vendettas. "Hot pursuit into Pakistan is acceptable if you're sure the bad guys are in your sights," explains a Western diplomat in Islamabad. "But if the Pentagon ends up dropping a bomb on women and kids because of bad intel...
Meanwhile, the region seemed about to come undone. "If Arafat is killed, all hell will break loose," a senior Arab diplomat told TIME. "You can say goodbye to the peace process for 10 years." Before storming into Arafat's compound, the Israelis blared over a loudspeaker to those inside, "Lay down your arms and come out." Israeli officials told TIME that the Egoz Battalion, a highly trained unit of commandos, led the room-to-room raid through Arafat's compound. Within 24 hours, the Israelis had arrested 150 Palestinians--including fugitives on their wanted list--wounded 40 Arafat bodyguards...
...Kremlin's industrial policies. But at least the country was economically and culturally viable, they said. They were overly optimistic. Ukraine's first 10 years of independence have turned out to be a lost decade and the history of those years, in the words of a U.S. diplomat, are best viewed as "a case study in state-sponsored looting." This week Ukraine is coming to the end of another bitter, rancorous and accusation-filled election. Officially at stake are the 450 seats in the parliament, or Verkhovna Rada. The most powerful challenge to Kuchma comes from Viktor Yuschenko, who acquired...
...Cheney's effort was undermined from the outset by Washington's low credibility in the Arab world. One senior Arab diplomat called Washington's policy toward the Palestinians "confused," and dismissed the idea of attacking Iraq as "ridiculous" and "disastrous." Although Arab officials welcomed Zinni's mission as a first step, the reaction to Cheney's tour ranged from puzzlement to scorn. And there is considerable anger that the administration allowed the bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians to reach unprecedented levels before intervening, despite many months of Arab allies pleading with Washington to do something...