- The day before terrorists struck the United States, its
intelligence agencies detected discussions between Osama bin Laden's
lieutenants
of an impending "big attack," a senior administration official
says.
-
- The official said in an interview that the detection
was not discovered until days after the Sept. 11 assault on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon. The time lapse is typical of intelligence
analyses,
in which computers sift through loads of that day's collection to find
valuable material.
-
- The detection explains, the source said, why President
Bush increasingly pointed the finger of blame at bin Laden in the days
following the kamikaze attacks. The source said the discussions were
between
bin Laden supporters in the United States and senior members of bin Laden's
al Qaeda terrorist organization.
-
- As the U.S. military buildup continued yesterday in
preparation
for air strikes on bin Laden's adopted home of Afghanistan, the Bush
administration
has brought on board significant allies in its campaign against global
terrorism.
-
- Military sources said Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two
former Soviet republics on Afghanistan's northern border, have agreed
secretly
to allow American special-operations troops to launch raids from their
soil.
-
- The U.S. Air Force is now operating Predator unmanned
reconnaissance planes in the region. The RQ-1 Predator relays instantaneous
images via a satellite link. It is being used over Afghanistan to locate
military targets and possible bin Laden hide-outs.
-
- Mr. Bush spoke to Uzbek President Islam A. Karimov on
Wednesday in the administration's drive to build an international coalition
against terrorism.
-
- The two Central Asian countries have a strong motive
for helping the United States dislodge the Taliban from power. The
extremist
Islamic rulers of Afghanistan reportedly have tried to spur a militant
Muslim uprising in both neighboring states.
-
- Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan on the south and
east, has agreed to let American warplanes use its airspace. This means
fighter-bombers on Navy carriers in the Arabian Sea would have a direct
route to targets in Afghanistan.
-
- The Predator flies up to 140 mph and below 25,000 feet.
Several were shot down during NATO's air assaults on Yugoslavia in 1999.
This summer, a Predator failed to return from a spy mission over southern
Iraq amid Baghdad's claims it had downed an American plane.
-
- A Pentagon official said at the time that, "The
whole idea is to use them in high-risk areas. If you lose it, you don't
lose a pilot."
-
- Officials also said that around Sept. 11, Afghanistan
ordered the scattering of heavy military weapons, such as MiG jet fighters
and tanks. "They are not where they used to be," said an
official.
"They moved them up into the hills."
-
- The Pentagon yesterday continued to direct what could
be the largest deployment of weapons to the Persian Gulf region area since
the 1991 war with Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has signed
deployment orders for about 150 Air Force aircraft. The package includes
heavy B-52 and B-1 bombers, F-15, F-16 and F-117 fighters, aerial
refuelers,
E-3 AWACs radar-surveillance aircraft and cargo planes.
-
- The Pentagon will not say where the planes will be based.
Most will likely go to airfields in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where
American warplanes are stationed year-round. Some may launch their bombing
runs from Central Asian countries.
-
- Two Navy carriers, the Carl Vinson and Enterprise, are
in the region. Two others, the Theodore Roosevelt and Kitty Hawk, have
been deployed and may join the other two in waters near Afghanistan.
-
- The Army is also moving ground troops in the form of
special-operations soldiers. These will include elite Rangers, Green Berets
and Delta Force commandos.
-
- Meanwhile, the Pentagon is starting to spend some of
the billions of dollars in emergency funds approved by Congress. On the
shopping list: new stocks of precision-guided munitions and improved
surveillance
equipment. Together, the systems would be used to locate and kill suspected
terrorists.
-
- The deployment is adding up to a combined air-special
operations war against the Taliban and bin Laden's terrorist network. The
only way the Taliban militia seems able to defuse an attack at this point
is to meet Mr. Bush's demands to turn over bin Laden and other terrorists.
The Taliban yesterday rejected the president's demands.
-
- The U.S. alliance with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan means
that a decade of forging military-to-military contacts with the Central
Asian nations has paid off for Washington.
-
- In 1995, Uzbekistan and the United States signed an
agreement
to conduct joint military exercises. The former Soviet republic has hosted
Army commandos who advised the country's 80,000-strong armed forces. In
1999, 16 Uzbek officers from the 65th Special Operations Battalion visited
Fort Campbell, Ky., and Fort Bragg, N.C., home of U.S. Army Special
Operations
Command.
-
- The Uzbeks received instruction about close-quarter
battle,
sniper fire, mountaineering, water operations, paratroop jumps, and using
the 9 mm pistol.
-
- Military sources say no final battle plan has been
approved.
But the ongoing deployments signal the Pentagon plans to infiltrate
Afghanistan
with special-operations soldiers. Working in small teams and armed with
the latest intelligence, the commandos would try to take down the Taliban
militia of about 30,000 " one fighter at a time. Backed by air
strikes,
the U.S. soldiers would also seek and destroy bin Laden encampments, with
the hope of encountering the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks that
killed over 6,500 people, most of them civilians.
-
- "We'll make it so he can't spend the night in the
same place twice," said one official.
-
- Unlike the Soviet Union, which spent the 1980s trying
to occupy Afghanistan and then retreated in disgrace, the United States
will strike, then move back to base, officials said. And, unlike the
Russians,
the American troops will be backed by advanced surveillance equipment that
can find pockets of Taliban militia.
-
- The U.S. Army commandos have another advantage: they
train, and are equipped, to fight at night.
-
- "Night is day to us," said a military source.
"And night is night to everyone else."
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