How bin Laden escaped

The week's news at a glance.

Tora Bora, Afghanistan

During the siege of Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden slipped across the mountains to Pakistan while his bodyguard stayed behind, making decoy calls from his satellite phone, U.S. officials told The Washington Post. By the time troops captured the bodyguard, Moroccan native Abdallah Tabarak, bin Laden was long gone. Tabarak now enjoys celebrity status among the Taliban and al Qaida prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. And bin Laden may still be out there. Several messages purporting to be from him have surfaced since Tora Bora fell—most recently this week, when a call for Muslims to unite against “Crusaders” appeared in a Saudi-owned newspaper.

The Week

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