{"id":1850,"date":"2004-02-23T15:47:13","date_gmt":"2004-02-23T22:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mossback.org\/archives\/2004\/02\/osama-boxed-in\/"},"modified":"2004-02-23T15:47:13","modified_gmt":"2004-02-23T22:47:13","slug":"osama-boxed-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/2004\/02\/23\/osama-boxed-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Osama boxed in?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tThe UK Sunday Express reported yesterday that coalition forces have got Osama and his bestest buddies boxed in on the Pakistan\/Afghanistan border, and his capture is nigh. Pakistan offers the kind of denials that go along with an ongoing military or police operation that&#8217;s <a title=\"Big operation against Al Qaeda in offing: Osama cornered - UK paper -DAWN - Top Stories; 23 February, 2004\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dawn.com\/2004\/02\/23\/top1.htm\">close to completion:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>When asked if 8,000 para-military troops were being sent to the tribal areas in addition to the 4,000 already stationed there on request from the political administration, Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said requirements for operational deployment were determined by the military authorities and no such request had been received from the political administration of tribal areas. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a hot story overseas, but not so hot in the US, where <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2004\/WORLD\/asiapcf\/02\/23\/pakistan.alqaeda\/index.html\">CNN coverage is most prominent:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Government sources told CNN the Pakistani army is ready to conduct a big operation against al Qaeda and Taliban elements in the Wana area. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Cynical wags suggest that the Bush Administration doesn&#8217;t want to capture Osama until October, but just between you and me I don&#8217;t think the timing matters. The Kerry\/Edwards\/Clark argument against the Iraq operation was that it was a distraction from the hunt for Osama, whose capture would clearly put that saw to rest. The newly-cooperative attitude of the Pakistani intelligence service sprang from the same well as Libya, Syria, and Iran&#8217;s new-leafishness so one man&#8217;s distraction is another&#8217;s incentive.<\/p>\n<p>Hat tip to Sitarama.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK Sunday Express reported yesterday that coalition forces have got Osama and his bestest buddies boxed in on the Pakistan\/Afghanistan border, and his capture is nigh. Pakistan offers the kind of denials that go along with an ongoing military or police operation that&#8217;s close to completion: When asked if 8,000 para-military troops were being &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/2004\/02\/23\/osama-boxed-in\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Osama boxed in?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbifyw-tQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}