“Our
operational evaluation today is that the threat is a lot greater than
it was in December,” a European counter-terrorist investigator told
the news magazine.
“That
is to say: The worst is ahead of us, not behind us.”
Newsweek
said the U.S. war in Afghanistan is widely regarded as successful, and
U.S. planners are ready to move on to the next challenge: removing
Saddam Hussein from the presidency of Iraq.
Tora
Bora’s altitude, the choice to bomb the wrong escape route and an
attack on the Indian parliament all contributed Al-Qaeda’s escape
from Afghanistan, said the weekly.
However,
the military has not captured its main target, Bin Laden.
As
U.S. bombers bombed the route from Tora Bora to the Afghan city of
Kwost, hundreds of Al-Qaeda members were escaping through the White
Mountain route to Pakistan, Newsweek said.
Bin
Laden and about 28 associates were among the escaping Al-Qaeda troops.
Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf would have plugged the leak earlier, said
the article, if it weren't for armed gunmen from a Pakistan-based
group storming the Indian parliament over the disputed Kashmir
territory.
A
U.S. plan to use Afghan troops to drive al-Qaeda into the path of
awaiting U.S. snipers also failed. By the time the Afghan soldiers
began their drive, only one third of the 1,300 U.S. troops were
acclimatized to the Tora Bora mountains, according to Newsweek.
Two
people witnessed Bin Laden’s escape, one as late as mid-February,
both telling Newsweek that he passed through the caves of Shahikot,
Afghanistan from Tora Bora. Although, their stories do not fully
corroborate, news agencies have called their accounts plausible.
The
first source, described as a former Taliban official and professional
guide, said Bin Laden escaped Afghanistan on horseback last December
under U.S. fire, reported the weekly news magazine.
The
official told the magazine he led Bin Laden’s group on the journey,
sometimes through heavy snow. The guide, whom the magazine did not
identify, called Bin Laden an expert rider and said he rarely
dismounted during the trip, reports news agencies.
A
second source, a Taliban soldier named Ali Mohammad, said he saw Bin
Laden accompanied by 15 bodyguards in mid-February in Shahikot
rallying Taliban troops, preparing for a U.S. attack, urging them to
keep their morale up and “take care of the injured and be confident
that God will award you on Judgment Day.”
U.S.
officials have said they do not know whether Bin Laden is dead or
alive, but, in recent statements, have assumed that he is deceased
