Weirdness bolded for emphasis.
WASHINGTON – In the spring of 1998, a unit dedicated to Osama bin Laden at the CIA's counterterrorism center hatched a plan to snatch the Al Qaeda leader, who by then had declared war on the US.
The group of 17 women and 7 men who referred to themselves as "the Manson family," according to an official familiar with the plan, meticulously surveyed - through intelligence from Afghan tribal leaders and satellite photography - the Tarnak Farm, a mud-walled complex in an isolated stretch of desert near the airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
--> "Averting 9/11: How close we came", Christian Science Monitor, March 25, 2004, www.csmonitor.com/2004/0325/p01s01-usfp.html
