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U.S.: Al Qaida is 70 percent gone, their 'days are numbered'

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"The Al Qaida of the 9/11 period is under catastrophic stress," State Department counter-terrorism coordinator Cofer Black said. "They are being hunted down, their days are numbered."

Black's assertion, made in an interview with the London-based British Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday, is based on U.S. intelligence community estimates that about 70 percent of Al Qaida has been neutralized, officials said.

Saudi officials agreed with the U.S. assessment and said the kingdom has made significant gains against Al Qaida, Middle East Newsline reported. They said Al Qaida leaders have been arrested and training camps have been discovered.

U.S. officials said Al Qaida has been rapidly losing its attack capabilities and was relying increasingly on smaller Islamic groups based in Southeast Asia and North Africa. The officials said thousands of Al Qaida operatives have been captured, killed or neutralized, with cells eliminated even in such strongholds as Kuwait and Yemen.
The intelligence community assessed that Al Qaida was at the height of its strength in mid-2001 with thousands of recruits trained in Afghanistan and other sent abroad as agents and sleepers.

The intelligence assessment was presented to the Bush administration and reported by President George Bush during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The assessment regards Al Qaida as becoming steadily weaker, with difficulties in raising funds and sustaining insurgency cells.

[In Hamburg, a German court was told that authorities have a witness who claims that Osama Bin Laden met Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials on May 4, 2001. The meeting took place in an air force base to plan the suicide attacks in the United States in September 2001. The witness was identified as an Iranian defector, known by his cover name Hamid Reza Zakeri, who had been an agent for Iranian intelligence until mid-2001.]

Officials said Al Qaida would continue as a much weaker organization and would focus largely on Saudi Arabia, the Horn of Africa while seeking to consolidate under the protection of Iran. They envision attacks being financed rather than carried out by Bin Laden.

The loss of veteran insurgency operatives has reduced the lethality of operations, officials said. Another factor has been the lack of success by Al Qaida to establish and sustain cells in many Western countries.

"The next group of concern would be a generation younger," Black said. "They're influenced by what they see on TV; they are influenced by misrepresentation of the facts. They seem to be long on radicalism and comparatively short on training."

"We have arrested over 600 terror suspects; many of the top Al Qaida leaders in the kingdom have been killed or captured," Adel Al Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, said. "And scores of cells and training camps have been uncovered and destroyed before they could do any harm to the innocent."
On Thursday, the United States and Saudi Arabia requested that the United Nations freeze the assets of four branches of an official Saudi charity accused of financially supporting Al Qaida. The U.S.-Saudi demand concerned the freezing of assets of the Riyad-based Al Haramain Islamic Foundation in such countries as Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan and Tanzania.

"These branches have provided financial, material and logistical support to the Al Qaida network and other terrorist organization," the U.S. Treasury Department said.

Al Haramain is a charity sponsored by the Saudi government. Saudi Islamic Affairs Minister Salah Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Sheik oversees the charity.

"Al Haramain stated it closed branches in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan, but continued monitoring by the United States and Saudi Arabia indicates that these offices and or former officials associated with these branches are either continuing to operate or have other plans to avoid these measures," the Treasury Department said.

In light of the article you just posted- notice the name of one guy in it?

Al Haramain is a charity sponsored by the Saudi government. Saudi Islamic Affairs Minister Salah Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Sheik oversees the charity.

Now look at this: Looks like the Islamic affairs Minister has been into kidknapping lately:

JUNE 2003 : (KING FAHD'S NEPHEW, SAUDI PRINCE ABDEL-AZIZ WAS KIDKNAPPED FROM SWITZERLAND AND TAKEN AGAINST HIS WILL BACK TO SAUDI ARABIA WHERE HE IS HELD UNDER HOUSE ARREST) An outspoken Saudi prince said on Thursday he was under house arrest in Riyadh after Saudi agents drugged and abducted him from Switzerland because of his criticism of corruption and calls for democracy in the kingdom. Prince Sultan bin Turki bin Abdel-Aziz, a nephew of King Fahd, told Reuters by telephone he was drugged during a meeting in Geneva last June [2003] with two government ministers, then found himself in a Riyadh hospital after 10 days in coma.
Saudi government officials declined to comment. Saudi analysts say Prince Sultan's public campaign to curb the powers of the royal family has been a source of deep embarrassment to the kingdom's rulers.
"I was between hospital and my house for the last six months. Now I'm at home, but they (police) are outside," the prince, who has often attacked corruption in Saudi Arabia on Arab satellite channels, said by telephone.
Details of the incident have been posted on the Web Site of a London-based Saudi dissident group, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (www.yaislah.org).
He said police guards had a month ago allowed him use of a telephone but warned him "not to do anything that would upset them." Prince Sultan said he had had no contact with any government officials about his position since his return.
"I can go to my mother's house or to the mosque, but that's it. I can't leave Riyadh or the country," he said.
"I was outside the kingdom for over a year, between Germany and Switzerland, talking about politics. I'm not against the regime -- I'm part of it, as a nephew of King Fahd -- but I'm against corruption and I want a democratic country," he said.
Prince Sultan said he was snatched out of Switzerland after the Minister of Islamic Affairs Saleh al-Sheikh and Minister of State Abdel-Aziz bin Fahd, son of the king, called him to a meeting at a royal residence in Geneva.
"One left to the bathroom and the other answered the phone, while five men came in and drugged me," he said, accusing the Swiss authorities of complicity in the incident.
International and domestic criticism of the Islamic kingdom, dominated by the royal family, has increased since the September 11, 2001, attacks focused attention on religious extremism. Most of the attackers were Saudi men. The world's biggest oil exporter, facing a wave of militant violence and growing economic challenges, has embarked on a program of cautious reform despite fierce opposition from some powerful religious figures.- "Saudi Royal Says He Was Abducted Over Criticism," Reuters, Thursday?, JANUARY 22, 2003