Washington, D.C.: CIA informed bin Laden escaped central Asia
An intelligence analysis sent to the CIA director last week concluded Osama bin Laden has escaped American efforts to find him in Afghanistan and that he most likely has fled the entire region by sea, ABC News reported Monday.
In a major setback to the war on terrorism, CIA analysts have concluded bin Laden escaped from the Tora Bora cave complex in eastern Afghanistan around the first week of December, intelligence officials said.
The officials also told ABC News that one captured al-Qaida fighter claims to have witnessed, in one of the Tora Bora hiding places, bin Laden turning over operational control to one of his deputies
"I think that most intelligence analysts are absolutely convinced at this point that bin Laden has slipped the noose and has left Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Vince Cannistraro, an ABC News analyst and former CIA counterterrorism chief.
Afghanistan: Help arrives for zoo animals
Thirty animals surviving in the blasted-out Kabul Zoo are in line for initial treatments over the next week, after the first international aid for them began arriving Monday.
The zoo had about 380 animals in the early 1990s when it first found itself on the front lines of a war between rival warlords, some of whom went on to lead the Northern Alliance.
Many of the animals were killed as the vast majority of the zoo was leveled. Most of those that survived later perished from malnutrition and untreated illnesses.
Pakistan: Hundreds of arrests made
Pakistani police hauled in hundreds more Islamic activists Monday, bringing to nearly 1,500 the number of people detained under a nationwide dragnet ordered by President Pervez Musharraf and aimed at defusing Pakistan's military standoff with India.
But India remained unimpressed, saying again that it would not pull back troops from the volatile border.
Along with the arrests, police have closed and sealed the offices of five organizations that Musharraf banned as purveyors of "intolerance and hatred." Two of them, according to a Pakistani interior ministry official, are accused of terrorism in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Colombia: Peace talks to resume
Colombia's government and main leftist rebel group agreed Monday to resume peace talks, pulling back from the brink of a wider war after last-ditch mediation by U.N. and international envoys.
"The peace process continues," President Andres Pastrana told a national television audience.
Hours earlier, capping a day of talks in a rebel-held southern village, France's Ambassador to Colombia, Daniel Parfait, read a statement declaring that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had dropped its objections to returning to peace talks.
The agreement came just hours before a government deadline for rebels to agree to resume the peace process or lose a large safe haven where three years of plodding peace talks have been held.
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