Officials: Bin Laden not running al-Qaida: Zawahiri in charge, Zarqawi emerging as new leader

Pakistani officials say al-Qaida is becoming more decentralized and its top leader, Osama bin Laden, may not be running the organization, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.

Instead, there is growing evidence al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahiri may be in charge of the terrorist network.

The officials also said Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Jordanian-based al-Qaida associate, is emerging as a new leader of the group.

Pakistani tribes have begun setting up militias of up to 4,000 fighters who are being tasked with finding al-Qaida terrorists in Pakistan's remote provinces.

The armed militias, known as "lashkars," are part of a deal between the regional government and the Islamabad government.

The deal calls for local militias to conduct military operations against al-Qaida terrorists as long as the Pakistani military stays out of the operations.

The U.S., Pakistani and Afghan governments are working together to root out terrorists in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

As for bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, Pakistani officials believe both could be in the border region, but there is no hard evidence.

Al Zawahiri would have already been killed if our military (well, those in higher-up positions) would have allowed our SOF to operate with more leeway in hunter / killer missions inside of the Pakistan Border region -

We have had viable Intel that hasn't been acted on because higher-ups become concerned with possible casualty rates or that the targets have been on the Pakistan side of the border.

We are at war - it is more then frustrating that Al Zawahiri, Omar and perhaps UBL (though, my gut tells me UBL is dead) are all still alive 3 years after the attack of Sept 11th -

We need to go get these guys! Period. If that means larger number of troops inside Pakistan border region - so be it! Come hell or high water.

Interesting from Novak (who can be a dip-S).

The situation in Afghanistan, as laid out to me, looks nothing like a country alleged to be progressing toward representative democracy under American tutelage. Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-sponsored Afghan president, is regarded by the U.S. troops as hopelessly corrupt and kept in power by U.S. force of arms.

Those arms are not what they seem. The basic U.S. strength in Afghanistan is 17,000 troops of ''straight-legged'' infantry -- conventional forces ill-prepared to handle irregulars. The new unit assigned to Afghanistan is the 25th Infantry Division, which has been stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and has not seen combat since the Vietnam War.

More important than this conventional infantry division are two commando units known as Black SOF (Special Operations Forces) and White SOF. Black SOF, by far the more numerous of the two, is assigned to capture Osama bin Laden. Nothing would do more to boost President Bush's sagging popularity than getting the designer of the 9/11 attacks.

The problem is that nobody I have talked to in the military thinks his capture is likely or may even be possible. The American fighting men think ''UBL'' (as he is called) is hiding in Pakistan, impossible to find. Most exasperating to the men in the field is the manpower and effort expended on what they consider to be a helpless cause.

It is White SOF that is given the task of confronting armed narco-terrorists. There are hardly more than 100 American soldiers assigned to this duty, many of them bearded and dressed as Afghans. They are augmented by British and New Zealand special forces, CIA paramilitaries and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency operatives.

They are also hamstrung by senior officers who may be expert in conventional warfare but are at a loss to understand American troops who are far closer in style to Lawrence of Arabia than George Patton. The special operations soldiers and junior officers have a low opinion of Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, the U.S. military commander. On paper, he looks good: West Pointer, Ranger, veteran of the Grenada and Panama invasions. But they grumble that Barno does not have a clue.

It is a strange war, with the JAGs -- Judge Advocate General military lawyers -- given a hand in military decisions. My sources tell of commanders, despite credible intelligence of enemy forces, calling off air strikes on the advice of JAGs. This is the kind of restraint the U.S. military has experienced starting with the Korean War, when as a noncombat Army officer, I knew our forces had their hands tied behind their backs.

I am told that one discouraged and now discharged Special Forces officer, who always has voted Republican and admires Bush, thought about contacting a former military colleague now advising John Kerry. He decided that would accomplish nothing and would inject him in politics. Being lost in Afghanistan transcends politics and is a long-term American burden.

Saddam did actually make a video after he was thought to be killed - and Saddam is a different story in that it made more sense to announce immediately when we thought he was dead-

UBL is different, there are some reasons to keep his death quiet.

With that said, it does appear obvious that we are not taking the fight to the enemy - in any way/shape or form like we should be on the Pakistan side - this is a joke, 3 years after the fact and we are still talking about the "border region".

Though, the Commander in charge of Task Force 121 (now called something else since it moved from Iraq to Afghanistan) the Commander there is supposedly a pretty sharp Counter-Terror expert (his name is slipping me) - but he was part of the Original Seal Team Six under Marcinko.

We might have had a few incursions into the Pakistan side of the border - but that is not what will catch UBl & Zawahiri - we need to have Teams in there blanketing the area - Teams that stay in positions for 4 to 7 day rotations -

These Teams need to blanket the area - not just a dozen SOF guys here and another dozen there - 100's need to be put into theatre - this is the only way to kill / capture enough of these bad guys that you can trace them back to UBL or Al Zwawhiri.

Where do you assume they are in not in this region - My guess is they are in this region (be it a very big and vast region mind you) - and why wouldn't they be? We haven't gone in there - there has been no reason for them to move out of it -

There is nothing more complex then avoiding the obvious (some good advice by Thomas Sowell) - and I take that with this situation as well - We can come up with all sorts of complex reasons for where these guys could have gone - IRAN, SUDAN, Saudi, large city within Pakistan - but I'm still sticking with the region right on the border from where we KNEW they where -

Agree with the "we aren't going to bomb a house in a city" reasoning -

However, in a City, you have thousands of more people who can see you come in or out - Thousands of more possible leaks -

In a rugged wasteland region - it is easy to hide - very few people who can "leak" -

And with UBL and Al Zawahiri I don't think a bomb is what we'd take them out with if we "knew" there location - it would be a TEAM taking them down - So being in a large City doesn't help with this regard - Besides the possibly of just blending in with so many more people -

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