Nearing Bin Laden?

Are American forces truly getting any closer to finding Osama bin Laden? Two weeks ago, Lieut. Colonel Bryan Hilferty, U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, raised hopes when he boldly announced he was "sure" bin Laden would be captured by the end of the year. His statement also prompted the inevitable speculation during an election year that the Bush Administration was somehow trying to orchestrate an October surprise: namely, the capture of the terrorist mastermind just before voters go to the polls in November.

In fact, military sources in Afghanistan tell TIME, Hilferty's statement was not based on concrete new information. But it did reflect a sense of rising optimism fueled in part by the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and in part by recent data gathering. A knowledgeable U.S. intelligence official tells TIME that a recent spike in intelligence has given government officials greater reason for hope than at any time since bin Laden escaped U.S. clutches in Tora Bora at the end of 2001. "There are some channels that are very active," this official says, declining to give details for fear they might "dry up." He adds, "There are a lot of people very confident that they have him narrowed to a certain sector." That sector probably encompasses several hundred square miles along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which is not exactly like having him cooped up in your backyard. Nor would this be the first time that hopes of bin Laden's imminent capture have risen, only to lead to disappointment. So no one, either in Washington or Afghanistan, is getting too giddy. Tracking bin Laden, the intelligence official says, is "kind of like trying to grab Jell-O before it solidifies."

--By Timothy J. Burger and Tim McGirk