US intelligence officials believed a few weeks ago that they were close to capturing an al Qaeda member in Pakistan who could have led them to Osama bin Laden, Newsweek reported on Sunday. "It looked like we were really close, maybe one or two people away," one US official told the magazine. "There was a lot of optimism around here."
Meanwhile, an eight-month military operation in South Waziristan Agency near the Afghan border failed to uncover the al Qaeda boss, even with 30,000 Pakistani troops backed by jets and helicopter gunships on the hunt, the report said.
The appearance of a new bin Laden tape on Friday was "a psychological downer," one official told the magazine. "It's yet more evidence that we haven't been able to find him."
One government expert said the latest message sounded like a "non-violent way to influence the election" instead of a call to arms, and that the fugitive al Qaeda leader did not seem like a man on the run.
After studying the tape, one intelligence official told the magazine it appeared bin Laden was living comfortably in an urban setting in Pakistan.
The United States has also dramatically expanded the number of terror suspects it keeps under surveillance in the wake of the latest video message from Osama bin Laden, Newsweek said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has for months had several hundred suspects under "intrusive" surveillance, but Attorney General John Ashcroft has order extra forces from other agencies to place several hundred more under watch, although officials have no evidence of any ongoing plot, the magazine said.
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