The New York Timesleads with news that the Pentagon has nixed it plan to send hundreds of marines into Tora Bora. Instead, the U.S. is pushing Afghan forces to do the checking, and is helping to convince them by "offering incentives like weapons, money and winter clothing." The Times says that only the Pentagon has now decided it will only send in regular troops if the U.S. can't convince the Afghans to do the job. "We've not moved any marines into Tora Bora, but that remains an option," said Col. Rick Thomas, a Central Command spokesman. " The Wall Street Journalworld-wide newsbox lead takes the opposite approach. It waits until the 12^th graph to mention the Marines (a story, by the way, originally broken by the NYT) and instead announces, "MORE SPECIAL-FORCES TROOPS MAY JOIN HUNT." Apparently, while the Pentagon is holding off the Marines, it is still considering sending in a large contingent of Special Forces guys to search with the Afghans. The Los Angeles Times's lead says "clues are piling up" that Richard Reid, the bumbling bomber, had some sort of al-Qaida connection: He was known as a disciple of an extremist cleric; he attended the same mosque as Zacarias Moussaoui, the man currently charged with conspiring in the Sept 11^th attacks; and some al-Qaida fighters say they saw Reid at one of their training camps in Afghanistan.  Finally, authorities has figured out the explosive compound in his shoes is PETN, which is 1) difficult for civilians to get and 2) has been used by terrorists in the past.  USA Todaydevotes the top 2/3 of its page to a look back at the images of 2001, while the top (make that the only) front-page news article is about Reid's links to al-Qaida.  The Washington Postleads with India's confirmation that it has moved ballistic missiles to the border with Pakistan. India said it was merely responding to similar moves by Pakistan. 

Nobody is sure whether either country's missiles are armed with nukes, but then, as one expert put it, "if Indian radar picks up a missile, what do you think would happen?"

The LAT leaves the missiles movements to the 22^nd paragraph of its India-Pakistan coverage and instead focuses on more positive news: India has put off an impending decision to cutback diplomatic and economic relations with Pakistan.

The Post says, as has been noted before, "Some Indian officials say the military buildup is less a prelude to armed conflict and more an effort to force Musharraf to crack down on the militant groups."

But then the paper quotes an Indian politics expert, "If people in the West think this is all just for show, they're making a grave mistake."

Meanwhile, some U.S. officials voiced concern that the escalating tensions could interfere with the search for Bin Laden. But one diplomat said that's ridiculous: "An all-out war between India and Pakistan would not just disrupt the hunt for bin Laden, it would make the whole American military campaign seem like a schoolyard fight."

"If we can convince Ali to start working the caves in a more aggressive manner, we might not have to go in," the American official said. "We are talking about things that matter to him like weapons and money. He is thinking about it."

Besides the fact that Tora Bora is a dangerous place—filled with mines, unexploded ordinance, and perhaps booby-traps—the NYT says another issue holding back the Marines back is that TB happens to be located in a fundamentalist province of Afghanistan. Thus the U.S. is keen on keeping a low presence there.

The WSJ mentions that the Marines took another prisoner into custody yesterday, perhaps the Taliban's former chief of staff. U.S. forces in Afghanistan now have "25 detainees." (The NYT, by the way, has totally different numbers: "The marines now hold 37 prisoners…")