BLOODY RAMADAN

COVER STORY: This Islamic holy month has been brutal for the targets of al-Qaeda terror. That—together with protests abroad, impatience at home, and an election around the corner—has President Bush increasingly on the defensive. After meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his chief ally in the terror war, he boiled the future of the conflict down to two choices: "to keep our word or to break it" | Mindy Belz

Anna Rubenstein, an 85-year-old grandmother, became the latest named casualty in the global war on terror last week. Her body—actually her upper torso only—was found by an Israeli disaster team who, with Turkish rescuers, are combing bomb-riddled rubble in Istanbul. The discovery and positive identification of her remains raised to 24 the number of the dead in Istanbul's twin synagogue bombings on Nov. 15. Earlier, on the day of the attack, the body of Mrs. Rubenstein's 8-year-old granddaughter, attending Sabbath services with her grandmother, was recovered from the rubble.

At the very same hours, 800 miles east of the Anatolian Plateau in central Iraq, forensic experts from the U.S. military sifted the wreckage near where two U.S. helicopters collided and crashed. Seventeen U.S. soldiers were killed. Investigators did not rule out the possibility that one or both choppers were fired on from the ground. Whether accident or act of war, the crash marked for coalition forces the single largest loss of life in Iraq.