Posted on 08/14/2004 7:06:56 PM PDT by neverdem
U.S. Surprised by Signs of Regrouping
In the more than two years since U.S. forces destroyed al Qaeda's haven and much of its leadership in Afghanistan, many U.S. intelligence officials and terrorism experts had come to believe that other Islamist extremist groups now posed the gravest threat.
From Istanbul to Madrid, local jihadists mounted daring and deadly attacks with little apparent support from Osama bin Laden's crippled network. President Bush and other U.S. officials boasted that two-thirds of al Qaeda's senior leadership had been captured or killed and that those who remained, including bin Laden, were desperate and on the run.
But the wave of arrests and intelligence discoveries in Pakistan in recent weeks that led to a new terrorism alert in the United States caught many U.S. officials and outside experts by surprise. It revealed a network of operatives connected to past al Qaeda operations and aligned with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the imprisoned mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The new evidence suggests that al Qaeda is battered but not beaten, and that a motley collection of old hands and recent recruits has formed a nucleus in Pakistan that is pushing forward with plans for attacks in the United States, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
The key questions, according to intelligence officials and experts from both nations, are whether the new guard is capable of coordinating significant terrorist attacks and whether any coherent leadership has emerged to take the place of Mohammed and other senior al Qaeda leaders now in U.S. custody.
U.S. and Pakistani officials said in interviews this week that they are unsure whether bin Laden is still taking an active role in directing plots, although some evidence suggests that he is.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
We should have been nicer to them I guess
Looks like they are scrping the bottom of the barrell.
Washington Post story. Hot air. Next, please.
the Washington ComPost.....what a total birdcage liner
Not much happens until someone starts carting the bankers off to jail and closing whole banking companies. These networks have to move mega-amounts of cash around the world.
Sure they have, they're all just lined up waiting to be hiding in caves and looking over their shoulders every minute of every day.
Do you also dismiss the recent terrorist warnings by the Department of Homeland Security?
WashCOMPOst is MISSING the point!!!
Where did the WashPost get this "info" ... from 'intel sources'... where did the 'intel sources' get this new understanding? from new data. how did they get the new data? BY LEARNING MORE ABOUT AL QAEDA FROM CAPTURED AL QAEDA OPERATIVES!!!
The real story, then, is this:
We are learning more and more and getting deeper inside the al qaeda network. As we do, we get a few surprises (like the casing of financial buildings in NYC and DC).
More on how fantastically we are doing is here:
http://alphabetcity.blogspot.com/
Liberating Iraq blog:
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/
And here:
Al Qaeda is unravelling
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1191069/posts
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said on Friday that al-Qaeda had been seriously weakened by the current roundup of arrests of key operatives and was "in the process of dismantling."
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The original article appeared in India. I made the point, that we need to read foreign press to read that, because US press would never put that title on an article, so as not to show Bush's successes.
That doesn't mean that we rolled up Al Qaeda, but we are in process of doing it. Since they are wounded, they are more ferocious, the cornered rat syndrome, so, of course they are still dangerous. Bush always said this is not going to be easy and it will take awhile, but we have made tremendous progress.
I wanted to post this in the first comment, but I forgot. I haven't reviewed these sources, but I post them for those who may want to download them, if they so desire. Let the downloader beware. This information is in a link on the right side of the original article. For those who don't want to register with the Washington Post, try BugMeNot.com
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Thanks for the ping. Please KEEP me on your list.
Thanks for teh ping.
The best reason for keeping Bush as president. Kerry would "sensitive" them back into a vile threat.
Where's a barf alert when you need it?
Seriously, I think sometimes these papers overstate optimism coming from the administration just to create a straw man to knock down.
They probably gather much strength from the nazi left and presstitutes.
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