FORT BRAGG, N.C., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. military has dispatched its elite and successful anti-terrorism unit to Afghanistan in the hope of finally catching Osama bin Laden.
The Pentagon began sending elements of Task Force 121, the same group that got Saddam Hussein, to Afghanistan after it became convinced that bin Laden had become, essentially, boxed into a small, known region, the Washington Times reported Monday.
Besides the al-Qaida leader, the Pentagon hopes to also get Mullah Mohammed Omar, head of the Taliban.
Speculation that the United States is close to finding bin Laden heightened last month when military officers in Afghanistan predicted that the terror leader would be killed or captured by year's end.
"We have a variety of intelligence, and we're sure we're going to catch Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar this year," Army Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in January.
"We've learned lessons from Iraq, and we're getting improved intelligence from the Afghan people."
Task Force 121 is a mix of Army Delta Force fighters and Navy SEALs based at Joint Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, N.C.
