Word: pakistani
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Reports out of Islamabad suggest that the Pakistani military has cornered a top al-Qaeda leader in the rugged northwestern province of Waziristan - and some government officials are saying unofficially that the man their forces have surrounded may be Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader who has operated as Osama bin Laden's Number 2 and is widely viewed as the intellectual architect of al-Qaeda's global strategy. TIME Islamabad Bureau Chief Tim McGirk spoke with TIME.com from the Pakistani capital about this breaking story...
...TIME.com: What's the latest you're hearing about the possibility that Pakistani forces may be about to snare a top al-Qaeda leader...
...McGirk: President Musharraf came out earlier Thursday and said he believes Pakistani forces have a "high-value" al-Qaeda leader surrounded. That's the reason Pakistani authorities believe that the 8,000 troops currently hunting al-Qaeda fugitives in south Waziristan are encountering such ferocious resistance. Authorities believe that those who are fighting against the Pakistani military in the area are defending someone of considerable importance, and also that this person may have been wounded, which would explain why they're fighting rather than running into the mountains, the way they usually...
...TIME.com: What would explain the ferocity with which Pakistani tribesmen appear ready to die to defend Arab terrorists...
...even as Western cities gird for more carnage, reports from Western Pakistan claim that al-Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri has been surrounded and that his boss can't be far behind. Pakistani officials began to backpedal on some of those claims, Friday, conceding that it was based simply on the intensity of the resistance they're encountering on their sweep through a tribal area in the hunt for al-Qaeda fugitives. Still, the head of France's military announced on Monday that Osama bin Laden had more than once in recent weeks narrowly escaped from French troops...