My gloom of earlier brought e-mailed requests to look on the bright side. So I checked on the blog of Brian Ross of ABC News, and found surprising headlines that show that outside of Washington, life – and the war on terror – go on:
Israel Puts Embassies on Security Alert Following Reports It Kidnapped Iranian
That’s a reference to the Iranian General in this story, Kidnapped or Defected? Top Iranian General Disappears, an article that has plenty of “holy #@%^&” comments, like:
One respected analyst with sources in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard says Gen. Ali Reza Asgari has defected and is now in a European country with his entire family, where he is cooperating with the U.S.
Other reports have suggested that the general may have been kidnapped by the Israeli secret service, the Mossad. A spokesperson at the CIA declined to comment on the reported defection.
“This is a fatal blow to Iranian intelligence,” said the source, explaining that Asgari knows sensitive information about Iran’s nuclear and military projects. Iran called tens of its Revolutionary Guard agents working at embassies and cultural centers in Arab and European countries back to Tehran out of fear that Asgari might disclose secret information about their identities, according to the analyst.
(By the way, it figures this huge news breaks and this guy disappears from Turkey right after I leave Ankara. Whoops, better not mention those two events together, lest Tehran think there’s a connection.) Whoa. The only thing bigger than that would be word that we’re on the trail of bin Laden. Oh, what’s that?
CIA Rushing Resources to Bin Laden Hunt
Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional man power and equipment into Pakistan in the effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, U.S. officials tell ABC News. ”Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct,” said one U.S. official. “We are very much increasing our efforts there,” the official said. People familiar with the CIA operation say undercover officers with paramilitary training have been ordered into Pakistan and the area across the border with Afghanistan as part of the ramp-up. Although never publicly acknowledged, Pakistan has permitted CIA teams to secretly operate inside Pakistan.
Well, it’s great that we may be getting closer to public enemies number one or number two, but that’s still a ways from actually catching them…
Efforts are now underway to identify the dead following a U.S. and NATO strike in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan over the weekend, according to Afghan officials. ABC News reported a major strike may have targeted a high-value al Qaeda target in the village of Mano Gai in Kunar province.
The U.S. military on the ground in Afghanistan continues to officially deny there was anything other than “routine military operations” in the eastern province over the past three days.
My guess is that if we had killed one of those “high value targets” we would have probably heard rumors by now.
But the war on those who would harm us continues, and we have more good days than they do…