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US optimistic Osama bin Laden may be captured by year end
New York, Feb 09: A recent spike in intelligence has given Americans officials greater reason for hope that they are close to catching Osama bin Laden than anytime since he escaped US clutches in Tora Bora at the end of 2001, a media report said today quoting a `knowledgeable` US intelligence official. `There are some channels that are very active,` the official told the `Time` magazine but declined to give details for fear they might dry up.
"There are a lot of people very confident that they have him narrowed to a certain sector." That sector, Time said, probably encompasses several hundred square miles along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border which, it said, is not exactly like having him cooped up in your backyard.
Two weeks ago, Lieutnent Colonel Bryan Hilferty, US military spokesman in Afghanistan, raised hopes when he announced he was "sure" bin Laden would be captured by the end of the year.
His statement, the magazine said, also prompted the inevitable speculation during an election year that the Bush Administration was somehow trying to orchestrate an October surprise: namely, the capture of the terrorist mastermind just before voters go to the polls in November.
Time quoted military sources in Afghanistan as saying that Hilferty's statement was not based on concrete new information. But it did reflect a sense of rising optimism fueled in part by the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and in part by recent data gathering.
Bureau Report
Two weeks ago, Lieutnent Colonel Bryan Hilferty, US military spokesman in Afghanistan, raised hopes when he announced he was "sure" bin Laden would be captured by the end of the year.
His statement, the magazine said, also prompted the inevitable speculation during an election year that the Bush Administration was somehow trying to orchestrate an October surprise: namely, the capture of the terrorist mastermind just before voters go to the polls in November.
Time quoted military sources in Afghanistan as saying that Hilferty's statement was not based on concrete new information. But it did reflect a sense of rising optimism fueled in part by the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and in part by recent data gathering.
Bureau Report