Al Qaeda Showing New Life

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63897-2004Aug13.html

Al Qaeda Showing New Life
U.S. Surprised by Signs of Regrouping

By Dan Eggen and John Lancaster
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 14, 2004; Page A01

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. <snip>

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Sounds like the Washington Post has been reading Democratic Underground

Form Democratic Underground
Dated Saturday March 20

Ending the Endless War
By Jack Rabbit

. . . Mr. Bush declared war on terrorism. He told the frightened and grieving nation that those who perpetrated the attacks hated America “for our freedoms.”
In the two and a half years since that dark September day, the United States has gone to war in two nations, Afghanistan and Iraq, and Congress has passed new legislation in the name of fighting terrorism.
During the autumn and winter of 2001/02, the United States invaded Afghanistan, where al Qaida had what might pass for its headquarters were it a more conventional organization, along with a number of training camps. Afghanistan’s government, lead by a group of oppressive religious fanatics called the Taliban, was weak and unable or unwilling to prevent al Qaida from operating inside Afghanistan. While the invasion failed to capture Osama, the Taliban regime was deposed and replaced by a government headed by Hamid Karzai, a former employee of Unocal; this new government promised to be more compliant with American interests. Since that time, the Taliban and al Qaida are reported to have regrouped in Afghanistan and little else has been done for by western powers for the country. President Karzai’s authority barely reaches beyond the capital; he has been derisively referred to as “the mayor of Kabul.”
Meanwhile, international terrorism continued. On October 12, 2002, a group called Jemaah Isamiah staged a bombing in a tourist nightclub in Bali, killing 200 people, mostly Australians. Connections between Jemaah Isamiah and al Qaida are suspected, but not clearly established. On November 28, 2002, in Mombasa, Kenya, three suicide bombers killed themselves and 13 Israeli nationals at the Paradise Hotel and, on the same day, a missile was fired on an Israeli plane leaving Mombasa airport. Al Qaida has claimed responsibility for the Mombasa attacks.
Since the invasion of Iraq, al Qaida has again made its presence in the world known. On May 12, 2003, a bomb went off in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, killing 34 people. Another bomb in Riyadh on November 8 killed 18 people and injured over 100. On November 15, bombs exploded outside two synagogues in Istanbul, killing 23 and injuring over 300. Last week, bombs blew up in three train stations in Madrid, killing 200. Al Qaida either has claimed responsibility or is suspected in each of these attacks.
The war on terrorism is being lost. Al Qaida is no less able to inflict harm with a dramatic attack where and when it desires today than it was on September 11, 2001.

Read more.

It's about time the mainstream press caught up with the rest of us.

[bemildred]

2. Tsk, surely you do not accuse WaPo of plagiarism? nt

[Moderator]

3. Saturday's news. Sorry.

I think it's been posted here before too.