Get Morgan Chase out of mine management; and another insight from Ted Butler

11:45a ET Saturday, March 20, 2004

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

A news flash that Osama bin Laden's deputy in the
terrorist organization al Qaeda was surrounded in a
battle in Pakistan was used to stall the rally in the
gold price Thursday. Today, with most markets
closed, the news has changed. As Reuters reorts in
the story appended here, whoever is surrounded in
Pakistan is someone else.

Of course bin Laden's deputy and even bin Laden
himself may be captured eventually. But this is about
the sixth time such a false report of an imminent capture
has been used to influence the markets in a pinch, and
there may be many more times. The question is only
how many more times investors will fall for such reports
and how much longer they will fall for the false premise
that bin Laden and other terrorists have much bearing
on the world financial system in the first place.

What is surrounded now is not this or that terrorist but
the U.S. dollar -- surrounded by the venality, negligence,
and arrogance of political leaders who have led their
great country to believe that it might never have to pay
for what it consumes.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Pakistan Doubts Al Zawahri Among Those Surrounded

By Simon Denyer
Reuters
Saturday, March 20, 2004

a href=http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WEZN2AMOHQHL0CRBAEht...
ZSFFA?type=topNewsamp;storyID=4611668amp;section=news

WANA, Pakistan -- Pakistan's army has arrested more than
100 suspected militants after five days of intense battles near
the Afghan border, but said it was unlikely al Qaeda No. 2
Ayman al-Zawahri was among those still surrounded.

Instead a senior commander said the quot;high-value targetquot; whom
the militants were thought to be protecting was probably an
Uzbek or Chechen militant leader.

Pakistani forces began to flush out foreign militants and local
tribal allies on Saturday from their heavily fortified mud-walled
compounds in the country's wild west, after raining fire on
their hideouts overnight.

But the army continues to face the stiffest resistance it has
encountered since launching operations last year in the
lawless tribal areas in an attempt to find al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden and his supporters.

Commanders said the fierce defense the rebels had mounted
suggested they were trying to protect a quot;high-value target,quot;
with officials initially speculating it might have been bin
Laden's right-hand man, Zawahri.

But intercepted rebel radio communications suggested the
mystery militant leader was an Uzbek or a Chechen.
Zawahri is Egyptian.

quot;He is most probably a Chechen or Uzbek because all the
intercepts we have been receiving have been in the Chechen
or Uzbek language,quot; Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain told reporters
visiting the western town of Wana, near the fighting.

Hussain said speculation Zawahri had been with the
militants was quot;conjecture.quot; Zawahri, a doctor, is regarded as
the brains of al Qaeda. He is thought to be one of the key
figures behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the
United States.

An intelligence source said two Chechen militants, identified
as Danyar and Quaran Ata, were believed to be in the area
and there was a possibility that a prominent Uzbek militant,
Tahir Yaldashev, was with them.

The offensive, involving several thousand soldiers, is the biggest
Pakistan has waged since it joined the U.S.-led war on terror
after the September 11 attacks.

Dozens of fighters have been killed and about 100 suspected
militants, many of them foreigners, captured, the army said.

quot;They are extremely professional fighters. They wait for our
troops to move within five to seven meters and then open fire,quot;
said Hussain, the top military commander in the region.

quot;They are taking us from every direction whenever our troops
have moved in and we are not knowing if the locals are with
us,quot; he said. quot;With an undefined target like this, it is
practically chasing shadows.quot;

Reporters saw an army truck carrying 30 or 40 prisoners,
blindfolded and with hands tied behind their backs.

Most were bearded and wearing the traditional Pakistani
Shalwar Kameez long shirt and baggy trousers. Some wore
Muslim prayer caps, others the brown woolen hats common
in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Hussain said the militants were defending long-established
and well-defended camps in the wild South Waziristan tribal
agency, with an extensive network of trenches and sentries
posted on watchtowers.

Pakistani forces first went in on Tuesday but ran into a hail
of fire and had to retreat in disarray, losing 16 men, local
officials said.

Since then they have stationed 2,500 troops in a 60-km
(40-mile) cordon around the area, with a similar number
fighting and searching houses inside the zone.

Hussain said the battle would soon be over but said
intelligence agencies had already identified other targets in
their campaign to sweep foreign militants out of the largely
autonomous tribal lands.

quot;It is going to be an unending operation. It is a series of
operations we are going to launch,quot; he said.

As Hussain briefed reporters in a military compound in
Wana, just to the east of the battle, Cobra attack
helicopters flew overhead and the occasional sound of
gunfire could be heard from across the desolate landscape
of rocks and scrub.

About a dozen Americans have been giving Pakistani forces
technical assistance in intelligence gathering but no U.S.
ground troops have been involved, the military said.

Across the border in Afghanistan, U.S.-led forces have
launched a push against the resurgent Taliban militia and
their al Qaeda allies. The Pentagon is calling the twin
offensives on either side of the rugged border a quot;hammer
and anvilquot; operation.

The number of militants killed was not known, although
military officials said 24, including some foreigners, had
been killed on the first day of the battle.

Hardline Islamic clerics have denounced the attack, saying
that it could breed terror strikes. Dozens of students in the
western town of Dera Ismail Khan protested against it on
Saturday.

quot;The government has made this drama for the benefit of the
USA,quot; said protester Sherbaz Ansari. quot;The result is the tribal
people have suffered. We are sure there are no terrorists in
our area, no al Qaeda.quot;

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----------------------------------------------------

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