Word: valleyful
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...says that in the tiny villages that cling to the slopes, al-Qaeda fighters had been buying the houses with mud walls, like miniature medieval fortresses. "Those who didn't want to sell," Wardak told TIME, "were asked to leave." Some al-Qaeda fighters hunkered down; high above the valley floor, others headed for the caves that Mansoor's father had dug 20 years...
...Rangers radioed Bagram for permission to go after their man. Hagenbeck agreed, and the undamaged Chinook dropped off six commandos to search for Roberts; then both helicopters returned to base. Unmanned surveillance aircraft searched for the missing man and found him moving across the valley. Images beamed from the drones to video monitors at Bagram showed three men approaching Roberts. They were at first thought to be friendly. Then Roberts was seen trying to flee. About three hours after the first incident, two more Chinooks set off from Bagram on a dual mission: to rescue Roberts and to insert more...
...commitment of U.S. power was necessary because of the surprisingly large force arrayed in Shah-i-Kot. Hamid Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan's interim government, called the valley "the last isolated base of terrorism" in his country. Pentagon officials dispute that?a source says there are still major pockets of resistance around Herat and Kandahar?but acknowledge that the number of enemy troops in Shah-i-Kot was extraordinary...
...battle began, U.S. intelligence detected hundreds of al-Qaeda sympathizers streaming toward the front lines from Pakistan. American officials wonder why such reinforcements would set off on a suicide mission unless they thought their leaders were trapped. American forces believe they have identified one "high-value target" in the valley, distinguished by the extent of his protection. Sardar Khan Zadran, a local commander, told TIME that last Wednesday, at a checkpoint on a mountain road leading to Khost, American-trained Afghan militiamen frisked two tribesmen and found an audiotape of bin Laden, some photographs of him, a letter detailing...
...Ironically, the new governor of the province, and Karzai's voice there, is an American citizen: Taj Muhammad Wardak spent the past decade in Los Angeles.) Shah-i-Kot was a well-known base for the mujahedin fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s; indeed, the Soviets never took the valley. The soft shale on the ridges is ideal for the construction of caves. One cave, visited last week by a TIME reporter, was at least 36 m deep and high enough to swallow a pickup truck. Many Afghans in Paktia still sympathize with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Near Khost...