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Mission to Capture or Kill al Qaeda Leader Frustrated by Near Misses, Political Disputes First of two articles.The seeds of the CIA's first formal plan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden were contained in another urgent manhunt -- for Mir Aimal Kasi, the Pakistani migrant who murdered two CIA employees while spraying rounds from an assault rifle at cars idling before the entrance to the CIA's Langley headquarters in 1993. For several years after the shooting, Kasi remained a fugitive in the border areas straddling Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. From its Langley offices, the CIA's Counterterrorist Center asked the...

Breaking on KDKA radio Pittsburgh...Afghanistan President Karzai's VP pick survives assasination attempt...convoy attacked...in Kabul(?)...no other details..searching Google now...

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Opposition leader and former defense chief Ahmed Shah Massood was injured and his close aide was killed Sunday in an explosion in northern Afghanistan, said Hajji Kahar, an opposition spokesman. Two men from Algeria posing as journalists apparently hid the explosive device in their camera, Kahar told The Associated Press in a satellite telephone interview from Khodja Bahauddin in northern Takhar province, where the explosion occurred. It's not clear whether the two men with the camera were killed. It's believed they were suicide bombers. "There was a lot of noise and smoke," said Kahar. Massood ...

By 1999, Massoud was seen by some at the Pentagon and inside the Clinton Cabinet as a spent force commanding bands of thugs. An inner circle of the Cabinet with access to the most closely guarded secrets was sharply divided over whether the United States should deepen its partnership with him. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Henry H. "Hugh" Shelton -- reflecting the views of professional analysts in their departments -- argued that Massoud's alliance was tainted and in decline. But at the CIA, especially inside the Counterterrorist Center, career...

SUSPECTED French terrorist Willie Brigitte tried to get information from his wife, former soldier Melanie Brown about the top-secret spy facility at Pine Gap, French police sources say. During her four days of interrogation by French officials in Paris last month, police said Ms Brown recalled incidents with Brigitte in Sydney that, on reflection, seemed suspicious to her. In particular, Ms Brown is understood to have told French interrogators that Brigitte questioned her at length about the US-Australian electronic intelligence station at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs. He asked her if she had ever been inside the base when...

PARIS, Nov 19, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Counter-terrorism agents this week arrested a man suspected of links to the assassins of anti-Taliban military commander Ahmed Shah Massood, France's interior minister said Wednesday. The suspect, not identified by name, was arrested Monday, Nicolas Sarkozy told lawmakers during a question and answer session. Sarkozy said the suspect "was in liaison with the assassins of Commander Massood," the western-backed head of the northern alliance opposed to the Taliban. Massood was slain on Sept. 9, 2001 in northern Afghanistan, two days before the terror attacks in the United States, by two men...

Terror suspect linked to Afghan assassination October 28, 2003 - 9:11AM A Frenchman under investigation in Australia and France for possible terrorist activities was also suspected of links to the assassination of an Afghan leader, authorities said. Willie Virgile Brigitte, 35, is in custody in a Paris area jail where he is being held on suspicion of association with a terror group, French police and justice officials said. Investigations are under way in France and Australia into Brigitte's alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror network, French officials said today. A judicial official said that Brigitte was also suspected of running...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- A former professional soccer player who joined al-Qaida was convicted Tuesday of plotting to blow up a U.S. military base believed to contain nuclear weapons in the first verdict in a trial of nearly two dozen alleged militants. Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian who once played soccer in Germany, was given the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. He had admitted planning to drive a car bomb into the canteen of the Kleine Brogel air base, where 100 U.S. military personnel work. Another Tunisian-born suspect, Tarek Maaroufi, was sentenced to six years for his involvement in...

The Perfect Storm author spent a month with anti-Taliban warrior Ahmad Shah Massoud in 2000. Now he offers his reaction to the recent murder of the Northern Alliance leader—and the subsequent attacks on the U.S. In November 2000 [National Geographic] Adventure sent contributing editor Sebastian Junger and photojournalist Reza (see photo gallery) to profile Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. The resulting article (read an excerpt) appeared in our March/April 2001 issue and has just been reprinted in Fire, a collection of Junger’s journalistic work. ________________________________________________________ On September 9, 2001, suicide bombers killed Massoud. Two days later the U.S. was...

BRUSSELS: A Tunisian former professional soccer player suspected of planning bombing attacks on US targets in Europe will stand trial May 22 along with 11 alleged accomplices, a Belgian court ruled Monday. Nizar Trabelsi faces charges including attempting to destroy property by explosion, possession of illegal arms and membership of a private militia. He is suspected of involvement in plots to blow up the American embassy in Paris and a Belgian air force base where about 100 US military personnel are stationed. Full details of the case against him and the other defendants were not immediately released. Belgian media reported...

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, Oct 28, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Four Algerians being held in the Netherlands as suspected terrorists were involved in the 2001 assassination of the former leader of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban alliance, Ahmed Shah Massood, a Dutch public prosecutor alleged Monday. The four men, arrested in April, face charges of falsifying passports, smuggling drugs and people, and "giving aid to the enemy in time of war," said prosecutor Jo Valente. The prosecutor spoke at a brief hearing in which the suspects' detentions were extended by three months while police continue investigations. The Dutch Justice Ministry believes the four...

AFTER praying at the hilltop grave of a legendary anti-Taliban commander slain by a suicide bomber last year, President Hamid Karzai yesterday vowed to fight terrorism despite an attempt on his own life two days ago. President Karzai flew by helicopter through northern Afghanistan's rocky Panjshir Valley to pay his respects at the tomb of Ahmed Shah Massood, who was mortally wounded in a September 9 suicide bombing blamed on Osama bin Laden. "We will continue to fight. We will continue to go and fulfil the objectives and desires of the man who is lying buried under the ground here,"...

KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit the grave of the late Northern Alliance military leader Ahmad Shah Masood, just two days after surviving an attempt on his own life. Karzai was scheduled to deliver a speech about the life of Afghanistan's official national hero at the tomb in Masood's Panjshir valley stronghold on Saturday in the lead-up to the anniversary of his killing on September 9 last year. It was still not known for sure if Karzai would make the trip north from Kabul for the event amid fears for his safety after a would-be assassin...

OSAMA bin Laden personally ordered the assassination of Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood days before the September 11 attacks, a senior ex-Taliban official has said. It is the first time a Taliban insider has discussed the terrorist mastermind's role. Massood, the military chief of the northern alliance, was mortally wounded on September 9 when two suicide attackers posing as television reporters detonated a bomb during an interview in Khodja Bahauddin, in Takhar province. In an interview with The Associated Press, Mullah Mohammed Khaksar, the former Taliban deputy interior minister, said bin Laden had ordered the two suicide bombers diverted...