Every other day our our government officials have been informing us about new threats from international terrorists preparing new attacks against Americans. This shows clearly that the war on terrorism is far from over, and the major goals of the anti-terrorist campaign have yet to be achieved.

The location of the prime target of this campaign, Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, remains unknown, and his organization, which was seriously damaged in Afghanistan, continues to exist in many countries, including the U.S.A. Moreover, from time to time, terrorist propaganda, including interviews of bin Laden and other terrorists, appears on our TV screens, as well as those in other countries.

On June 12, a Russian newspaper published what it said was an interview with the leader of the ousted Taliban movement, affirming that Osama bin Laden was alive and threatening new attacks on Americans. The online edition of Argumenti i Facty weekly said Mullah Mohammed Omar replied recently through the Internet to questions sent to him in the early Spring through mediators, including Arab journalists and former officials of the Taliban foreign ministry.

Bin Laden "is alive" and "the Holy War is only beginning, the fire from this war will reach America, and it will burn the capital that launched an unjust attack on Muslims," Omar was quoted as saying. He also claimed that bin Laden is in Afghanistan and said "Osama helped us during the war with the Russians; he would not leave us now."

It's very difficult to believe that bin Laden remains in Afghanistan, where the U.S. and allied special operation forces checked almost every cave and all other possible hiding places. It would be more reliable to propose that Al-Qa'ida leadership is moving from one place to another, with temporary stops in Afghanistan, and in neighboring countries, for instance, in Pakistan, which is our official ally in the war on terror, but whose authorities are very far from having full control over the country.

According to Western intelligence estimates, Al-Qa'ida's underground network is functioning in Pakistan with the complicity of the Muslim clergy and Pakistani intelligence services. Many thousands of Al-Qa'ida fighters and Taliban followers are hiding in Pakistan with the support of active and retired Pakistani intelligence operatives as well as religious and tribal-group leaders.

On June 20, the Washington Times quoted a prominent Pakistani tribal leader who claims that Osama bin Laden has been living in Peshawar since the second week in December, "where he is among friends and admirers and protected by several thousand Pakistani sympathizers." His supporters believe that America "is a glass house that is breakable" and say that U.S. "injustices all over the world, especially in the Middle East, will lead to far worse incidents than those of Septerber 11, 2001."

There is no doubt that, from their hiding places, bin Laden and his lieutenants are planning new attacks against America with all weapons from their arsenal, including socalled "dirty" bombs.

Recently, it was reported that U.S. security services succeeded in foiling an attempt by Al-Qa'ida to detonate a "dirty" radioactive bomb in Washington, D.C. The story may turn out to be a false alarm, or it may be that radioactive material to make dirty bombs is already stashed away somewhere in America, waiting to be used.

It's possible, at least in theory, to get hold of the material to make a "dirty" bomb in the U.S.A., which has, for over a half century, produced thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste. Former Soviet republics may also be a source of radioactive substances because, although efforts have been made to try to guard weapons-grade nuclear material in Russia, radioactive waste is often dumped and not guarded at all.

In Chechnya, for instance, a Soviet-era nuclear burial ground has been in the middle of the protracted war and, for years, it was not controlled by anyone. It is believed some radioactive substances were removed from that place by local authorities, but no one knows for sure how much, since accurate logs are absent and no one is keen to volunteer to dig up the radioactive burial ground to see what's missing.

Finding bin Laden and his lieutenants is the same as finding a needle in a haystack. However, the U.S. special forces did it before several times, and there is no doubt that they will do it many times more. The only thing we cannot afford to do is to ignore warnings based on credible evidence, as was done by the Clinton administration many times.

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