Rogues No More?

This is how bad it was for terrorist-hunters before Sept. 11. After weeks of dangerous surveillance work along the Afghan border, Egyptian investigators finally tracked down their quarry, a close associate of Osama bin Laden named Ahmed al-Khadir who was wanted for bombing the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995, killing 15 people. The Egyptians had surrounded the safe house in the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar where al-Khadir, an Egyptian Canadian, was hiding. All that remained was to notify Pakistan's then chief spymaster, General Mehmood Ahmed, so that his spooks could burst in to arrest al-Khadir. Ahmed promised swift...