PESHAWAR - August 28, 2002 -- Al-Qaeda, "the base", is now extinct. Al-Qaeda has a brand new name: Fath-e-Islam (Victory of Islam). And Fath-e-Islam's leader, none other than Osama bin Laden, is very much alive. Osama has returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan, more precisely in Kunar province.

Key players in the ultra-complex Pakistan-Afghanistan game had been saying that since the fall of Kabul in November 2001 that "the last battle" in this ongoing war would be in Kunar. The Taliban and the rebranded al-Qaeda have full tribal support in Kunar - where everybody seems to know someone who died from the American bombing of Afghanistan. A Pashtun notable puts the issue succinctly, "If the Americans are serious about grabbing Osama, they will have to put up a fight with boots on the ground and accept many body bags".

On August 10, the Daily Ummat, the number one Urdu-language paper in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, published a front-page story filed from Asadabad, Afghanistan (the capital of Kunar). The story did not appear in other Pakistani English-language papers, or in the international media.

The story was headlined "Osama spotted in Pakistani area - Dir". Dir, in the northern strip of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) is about 80 kilometers from the Afghan border in Kunar province. The story also said that Ayman al-Zawahiri, aka "The Surgeon", was reorganizing al-Qaeda something like 50 kilometers west of Chitral. Chitral, north of Dir, is at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains.  

WASHINGTON - Boston Globe July 3, 2005 -- With national elections planned for September, senior Pentagon officials say they are considering a temporary increase in US forces to respond to recent attacks on the new Afghan government and a series of brazen assaults on US military forces.

On Tuesday, militants armed with a rocket-propelled grenade downed a US helicopter in the mountainous border region with Pakistan, killing all 16 Special Forces soldiers who were aboard, according to a preliminary investigation. The Navy SEALS and Army special operations commandos were on a mission to aid a small reconnaissance team that had been battling with Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the area and is now missing.

Taliban spokesmen have claimed credit for shooting down the helicopter and say they have captured a US soldier and killed seven American ''spies." The information could not be verified and an intensive search of the area by hundreds of US troops was underway for the second day yesterday.

Also, in a three-day assault that ended Friday, 25 people were killed when Taliban fighters attacked two police stations and a nearby village in southeastern Afghanistan, the spiritual heartland of the former ruling Taliban regime, including nine tribal elders, the provincial governor in Uruzgan province told the Associated Press.

Other contributing factors cited for the increase in attacks are the spring thaw in the Hindu Kush mountains, increased pressure by US forces and the Afghan government on the booming heroin trade. Robert M. Perito, a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace, said: ''The overriding story I heard is that the security is worse this spring than it was a year ago. There are more attacks and they are better organized, more lethal, and widespread."

Lieutenant General James T. Conway, commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Unit, told reporters: "There is an increased presence of IEDs. If you charted it over time, you would see more attacks tied into IEDs than perhaps we had over the last six to 10 months."

The tactics have taken their toll. In the past three months, 29 US troops have been killed, including the 16 in last week's helicopter attack, the deadliest since US forces invaded on Oct. 7, 2001. This year is already the deadliest for US troops, 52 troops died last year, 47 soldiers were killed in 2003 and 43 in 2002. From October to December 2001, 12 US military personnel were killed.

Before last week's attacks, 194 troops had died since the start of the war, 80 from hostile fire and 114 in military accidents. According to the Pentagon figures, 506 soldiers were wounded in action as of June 25.