Word: waziristan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...developed ties with bin Laden in the early 1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan. According to a Pakistani intelligence source in Islamabad, al-Libbi became one of bin Laden's few trusted aides. After allegedly organizing the assassination attempts on Musharraf in 2003, al-Libbi fled to Waziristan, a mountainous area along the Afghan border that has long been outside the reach of Pakistani law. After the Pakistani army mounted an offensive in the region in March 2004, al-Libbi and other al-Qaeda fighters, thought to number fewer than 30, left Waziristan and headed for the safety...
...Letting him go was a fatal error. Upon returning to Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region, Mesud rallied tribesmen and former Taliban fighters to hit back at the U.S. and its ally, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. On Oct. 9, as Mesud later told the press, he ordered his men to kidnap two Chinese engineers working on a dam site near the Afghan border. China and Pakistan have close diplomatic and economic ties, and the engineers' capture caused embarrassment in Islamabad and anguish in Beijing. In exchange for his hostages' freedom, Mesud demanded the release of dozens of Islamic militants arrested...
...officials refuse to comment on bin Laden intelligence, but they have long believed he is in the mountainous, lawless Pakistani border region of Waziristan. Terrorism experts say that rather than risk satellite-phone communication that can be pinpointed by U.S. eavesdroppers, bin Laden relies on a string of runners to carry his notes or recordings from his redoubts. Those audiotapes and videotapes reach news agencies in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar or the capital, Islamabad, strengthening the U.S. view that he's in Pakistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's second-in-command, also believed...
...seven-month-long Pakistani offensive designed to flush bin Laden from Waziristan has come up empty. The Pakistanis say bin Laden is hiding in Afghanistan, while the Afghans agree with the Americans that he's on the Pakistan side. Says Lieut. General David Barno, U.S. commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan: "They probably feel more protected by their foreign fighters in remote areas inside Pakistan...
...showed that the group's leaders have contingency plans to shift operations away from the hinterlands of Pakistan to Somalia and Sudan. And just last week, Pakistan's military said it launched an air and ground attack against a suspected al-Qaeda training camp in the tribal area of Waziristan, killing more than 60 recruits and their Uzbek and Chechen trainers...