Michael Totten: Did We Lose in Iraq? No, and Here’s Why

Michael J. Totten, writing today in The New Republic, discusses the veracity of American victory in Mesopotamia in the light of President Obama's announcement of US withdrawal by the year's end. The article also makes interesting reading with regard to regional power plays, past, present—and future:

President Barack Obama has announced that nearly all American soldiers will be home from Iraq by the end of the year. Despite the fact that Iran, as the Middle East’s most serious would-be hegemon, will benefit more than any other country from our regional drawdown, the American and Iraqi governments wish to go their own separate ways.

The president has a campaign promise to keep. Most Americans are tired of sending their money, their sons, and even their daughters to Iraq, and most who haven’t spend money or blood are tired of hearing about it. The Iraqis have been trying to elbow us out for years and hope to regain a measure of sovereignty and respect when we’re finally gone.

It’s risky. In a worst-case scenario, Washington could end up evacuating its embassy a few years from now as we did in Saigon nearly four decades ago. But there’s a big difference between withdrawing from Iraq in 2011 and withdrawing from South Vietnam in 1973: The war in Iraq is over.

That's not to say that Iraq is a model of stability. “Iran is laying low right now and is riding us out,” U.S. Army sergeant Nick Franklin told me in Baghdad two years ago. “When we pull out, though, and they know we're almost out, it will be game on here in Iraq.” By aiding and abetting violent Shia militias and terrorist organizations, Iran has indeed been doing its worst to export its sectarian grievances and repressive political system to Iraq ever since coalition forces chased Saddam Hussein out of his palaces. Tehran is still striving for dominance—not only in Iraq, but everywhere else in the region, as well—and that job will surely be easier without the United States in the way.

The Obama administration knows this perfectly well. “To countries in the region,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier this week in Tajikistan, “especially Iraq’s neighbors, we want to emphasize that America will stand with our allies and friends, including Iraq, in defense of our common security and interests.” Obviously she was referring to Iraq’s Iranian neighbor. No one worries that Jordan will nefariously interfere in Iraq any time soon. But Clinton’s assurances are less credible given the imminence of America’s withdrawal. Promoting our interests in Iraq will be a lot harder when our closest military forces are in Kuwait rather than Baghdad.

Even so, Iran’s Islamic Republic regime won’t benefit nearly as much from our withdrawal today as it would have five years ago. Iraq was an absolute disaster in 2006. Before General David Petraeus “surged” thousands of additional counterinsurgency troops to the country, a hurricane of car- and suicide-bombers turned Iraq into the most terrorized place on the face of the earth. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq lorded over Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, and points beyond. Moqtada al Sadr’s radical Shia Mahdi Army militia had its own Hezbollah-style state-within-a-state with its capital in Sadr City, a vast slum in Baghdad that’s home to millions of people.

If the United States had withdrawn its forces then, as many commentators and policymakers demanded, the Iraqi government almost certainly would have disintegrated. Iraq might not even exist as a state anymore. Al Qaeda could have claimed it beat the United States Marine Corps in a shooting war—a feat far more impressive for the purposes of propaganda than even the killing of thousands of civilians in New York and Washington. Iran, meanwhile, could have successfully replicated the quasi-imperial foreign policy it all but perfected in Lebanon where it acquired its own private army—Hezbollah—during a chaotic time of sectarian civil war and foreign occupation.

Iraq is a completely different country today. Al Qaeda in Iraq scarcely even exists anymore. No militia, either Sunni or Shia, controls territory or has its own “capital” anywhere. Baghdad’s government is not going to fall, no matter how much Tehran tries to undermine it. No one will be able to claim even implausibly that Americans were driven out of Iraq under fire. Nor can anyone plausibly say the United States lost. The enemies of the United States and Iraq’s elected government have either been vanquished, forced to give up the gun, or driven into the shadows.

“In all societies there is an acceptable level of violence,” U.S. Army captain A.J. Boyes said to me in Sadr City in 2009, suggesting that Iraq was reaching that point. Baghdad was no longer the war zone it used to be, and it’s even less violent now that it was then. No society in the world can be completely free of violence, but the “acceptable” level, given factors like history and political grievance, is higher in some countries than in others. It’s higher in the United States than it is in Japan. It’s higher in Mexico than it is in the United States. And it’s higher in Iraq than it is in Mexico. But Iraq today is less violent than Mexico, one of the most heavily touristed countries in the world.

That’s not to say there are no reasons to stay. “If there is one constant of American military history,” Max Boot wrote in Commentary, “it is that the longer our troops stay in a country the better the prospects of a successful outcome. Think of Germany, Italy, Japan or South Korea. Conversely when U.S. troops rush for the exits hard-won wartime gains can quickly evaporate. Think of the post-Civil War South, post-World War I Germany, post-1933 (and post-1995) Haiti, post-1972 Vietnam, or, more recently, post-1983 Lebanon and post-1993 Somalia.”

Boot is right about that. President Obama’s decision to withdraw may well end badly. But if it does turn out to be a mistake, it will be a much smaller mistake than a pre-surge withdrawal would have been. We are no longer staring down the possibility of a military or grand strategic defeat on the battlefield.

Iraq just isn’t as dangerous anymore, not to itself and not to others. If Iran tries to destabilize it with terror militias again, Iraq will fight back. And the Iraqis know how to fight back effectively now after so many years of American training. If Iran actually tries to invade with conventional forces—a spectacularly unlikely event, but one never knows in that part of the world—odds are excellent that the American military would respond to the breach of international law and sovereignty by again joining the fight alongside the Iraqi military.

Iraq has been gearing up to stand on its own for years. President Obama merely decided the time would come sooner rather than later. A Republican president would have eventually made the same decision even if it might have taken a little bit longer. Few Americans are in the mood for any more nation-building or babysitting. Iraqis, for their part, are tired of being built-up and babysat by Americans. Some kind of withdrawal and disengagement has been a long time coming for those reasons alone. A substantial number of American officials were persuaded that sticking around in Iraq to prevent a catastrophe was probably wise as long as we’d leave when a howling abyss no longer yawned at everyone’s feet. For better or for worse, that time has arrived.

BBC News: Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki killed in Yemen

BBC News publishes a report regarding the 'targeted killing' (yesterday?) of prominent al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen by an American drone:

US-born radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a key al-Qaeda leader, has been killed in Yemen, the country's defence ministry said.

US President Barack Obama said his death was a major blow to al-Qaeda.

Awlaki, of Yemeni descent, has been on the run in Yemen since December 2007.

The US said that as a key figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), he had played a "significant role" in plots to blow up US airliners and had sought use poison to kill US citizens.

Mr Obama is said to have personally ordered his killing last year.

Yemen's defence ministry statement said only that Awlaki had died in Khashef in Jawf province, about 140km (87 miles) east of the capital, Sanaa, "along with some of his companions".

US and Yemeni officials later named one of those as Samir Khan, also a US citizen but of Pakistani origin, who produced an online magazine promoting al-Qaeda's ideology.

Local tribal leaders told the AFP news agency that Awlaki had been moving around within Yemen in recent weeks to evade capture. Local people told AP he had been travelling between Jawf and Marib provinces when he died.

US officials said Awlaki's convoy was hit by a US drone and jet strike.

Mr Obama said that as the leader of external operations for AQAP, Awlaki, born in 1971, had taken "a lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans" and was also "directly responsible for the death of many Yemeni citizens".

He said the death marked another "milestone in the broader efforts to defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates", and paid tribute to US intelligence and the Yemeni security forces for their co-operation.

"This is further proof that al-Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world, " he said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Awlaki had "demonstrated his intent and ability to cause mass terror".

One US official told the American network ABC that US intelligence had had "a very intense focus" on Awlaki for some time, waiting for a chance to strike.

The unnamed official said there had been "a good opportunity to hit him" on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this year, but that "it never materialised".

That's an extract: there's more, so take a look!

Al-Qaida: spent force or spark for future generations of Islamic militants?

Jason Burke, Guardian correspondent whose book The 9/11 Wars comes out this month, writes in today's edition about the dangers of complacency vis à vis al-Qaida:

It is the biggest terrorism trial ever staged in Saudi Arabia. In the dock are nearly 100 men and women accused of attacks in the country. The testimony describes bloody assaults on compounds full of expatriates and bombings of government buildings. The accused will almost certainly be found guilty and many will be executed.

But in many respects this feels like a court case from another era. The current trial relates to episodes from 2003 and 2004, which might just turn out to be the heyday of the Islamist terrorism phenomenon known as al-Qaida.

"In the last two or three years al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia is dying," said Dr Abdul Rahman al-Hadlaq, senior adviser to the ministry of the interior in Riyadh. The most recent terrorist incident in the kingdom was several months ago: a checkpoint shooting involving a militant returned from Guantánamo Bay.

Osama bin Laden's death impacted on al-Qaida's power and influence around the world, but it was already waning, say security experts.

Around the world, the assessments of most counter-terrorist officials about the health of violent Islamic extremism in the areas they watch are close to that of al-Hadlaq. So far, this year has seen less terrorist violence associated with al-Qaida than any other since the millennium, arguably the late 1990s. Despite the obvious significance of the date, "there have been no credible … threats against the United States yet ahead of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks," the US homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, recently told reporters.

In Afghanistan, US and other western intelligence officials told the Guardian there were only around 100 al-Qaida fighters and of those only "a handful" posed an international threat. There is a residual presence in parts of north Africa but not one that menaces Europe, according to France's top counter-terrorist judge.

In Iraq, al-Qaida is a shadow of its former self and resurgent groups in Yemen and Somalia, only tenuously linked to the senior leadership based in Pakistan, cannot make up for the organisation's loss of capacity elsewhere, analysts say. "The CT [counter terrorist] specialists are worried but neither Yemen nor east Africa are a strategic threat," said one western security official. Islamic extremists have been marginal to the events of the Arab spring, many point out. And of course Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaida and its leader, is now dead, killed in an American special forces raid on a compound in Pakistan in May.

"Al-Qaida has been hollowed out," said a British security source. "Of the 10 top people we were most interested in a few years ago, only one is still alive. Maybe we will look back at the first decade of this century as an aberration when a small number of people threatened a superpower."

Yet after many years of officials and politicians stressing the threats posed by al-Qaida – often represented as a global terror network with the ability to launch devastating strikes almost at will – this declaration of victory seems rather sudden. So what is the true picture?

Life for militants

In late June last year a German jihadi volunteer called Rami Makanesi was detained by Pakistani intelligence services at a checkpoint on the edge of the semi-autonomous tribal zones near the border with Afghanistan. Under interrogation Makanesi, from Frankfurt, was to provide the most detailed recent account of life for al-Qaida militants in their Pakistani stronghold. Analysts have long spoken of al-Qaida as divided into three parts: central or senior leadership, affiliates or networked groups and the ideology. What was clear from Makanesi's testimony, obtained by the Guardian, is that "al-Qaida central" has been under pressure for some time.

The overweight former heavy drug user described a world of splintered factions in constant fear of their communications being intercepted by spies. Training was rushed, carried out indoors or in villages for fear of attacks by the unmanned drones which killed around 25 of his associates. Makanesi's own freelance attempts to travel to Afghanistan to fight were unsuccessful. He had to buy his own gun and pay his own rent, confirming reports that al-Qaida is short of funds.

Makanesi's description, intelligence officials said, matched their understanding of al-Qaida's existence in the tribal zones. A small number of key leaders – around a dozen are believed by analysts to have attended a meeting to ratify the succession of Ayman al-Zawahiri as head of the group – spend as much time avoiding missile strikes and betrayal as plotting operations.

According to US officials, material seized from the compound where Bin Laden was killed in May suggests that the attacks in London in 2005 and the thwarted "airlines plot" of 2006 were the last over which he had close control of operational details. From that date on, apparently, his role was restricted to broad strategic direction. In the second half of the last decade al-Qaida turned into an umbrella term for a range of militant groups. This network of affiliates has also suffered in recent years.

By 2006, when their leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed, the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq was in deep trouble. In recent years, al-Qaida offshoots from Morocco to the Philippines, some formally linked to the group, others simply inspired by it, have been eliminated or put under enormous pressure.

That pressure is continuing, says Philip Mudd, a senior intelligence adviser at the FBI until 2010. "The Europeans are still pretty serious, the Saudis have done well," he said. "The Indonesians have done better than many thought they would." One of the newest affiliates – al-Qaida in the Maghreb – has proved incapable of confronting even local security forces in Algeria let alone projecting a broader threat. According to Mudd, the "operational and ideological momentum" which lay with the militants in the middle years of the last decade now lies with those fighting them.

Falling support for al-Qaida

Peter Bergen, the American author and al-Qaida expert, points to the series of polls showing the degree to which support for Bin Laden, the group and their methodology, always far from unanimous, was falling rapidly in key countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and elsewhere even before the events of this year in the Arab world. "Al-Qaida's leaders, footsoldiers, ideas were all totally absent from the Arab spring," he said. "When al-Zawahiri issued a statement on what was going on, it was totally ignored." Bergen said.

In Bin Laden's native Saudi Arabia, officials pointed out that support fell away rapidly after the first wave of terrorist attacks in the kingdom in 2003. In Afghanistan, relations between the Taliban, committed largely to local goals, and international militants with a global agenda remain tense and complex.

In Europe too militants have become increasingly marginalised. Once there were scores of young Britons seeking training or combat experience alongside the Taliban each year. Now there are no more than a dozen or so, UK security sources claim. Officials at MI5 say their new tactic of early "interdiction" of any threat works well enough for things to look "boring".

"We will have al-Qaida and al-Qaida-related violence for some time to come," said Nigel Inkster, former deputy director of MI6. "But the tide has turned. Bin Laden's ideas of setting the Muslim world ablaze and sparking a global insurgency have been and gone."

However, some warn against the new confidence of security officials and politicians. "There is a narrative of victory that does not make for good analysis," said Leah Jewell, who tracked Islamic militancy for the Australian police. Mudd, meanwhile, is concerned that overly optimistic assessments could lead to a lack of focus. "The guy is on the floor and we need to kick him in the face," he said. "This is a long campaign."

Others suggest there is a risk of the same analytic failure that has crippled attempts to deal with the problem of Islamic militancy since 2001: the reduction of a broad phenomenon with roots in political, religious, social and cultural factors in the Islamic world to the activity of a person or group.

Bin Laden's project was to unite and focus the disparate strands of radical Islamic militancy. In this he was partially and temporarily successful. But the last decade has seen a steady move away from the highly organised, carefully planned strikes involving dozens of attackers towards chaotic, fragmented and diverse violent activism. The European Union's criminal intelligence agency estimates that less than a third of those arrested for Islamist terrorism in 2010 in Europe were linked to a specific group.

Michael Leiter, director of the US National Counter-terrorism Centre, described the numerous plots in America last year as "unrelated operationally but … indicative of a collective subculture and a common cause that rallies independent extremists to want to attack the homeland". In India, recent attacks are believed to be the work of "homegrown" militants without external links. One incident earlier this year – the bombing of a cafe in Marrakech, Morocco – was disowned by al-Qaida itself. An autonomous group of militants claiming allegiance to the organisation appears responsible.

Counter-terrorism strategies now largely reflect this new reality, even if the language used by officials and politicians in public sometimes does not. These days western intelligence services favour analysis of networks over building pictures of traditional hierarchies, while "profiling" based on generalisations has been replaced by a "granular" approach. One element emerging from research by several services has been the importance of family ties in the process of radicalisation around the world.

Concern about jihadi families

Evidence of the ease with which groups of close relatives appear to have been drawn into violent militancy from the ongoing trials in Saudi Arabia has shocked local officials. Such ties have also been identified by US intelligence analysts in Iraq. In the UK, security officials are concerned about "jihadi families", particularly the potential of the children of militants to turn to violence. In Algeria last month, the 23-year-old son of a former senior Islamist was killed by security forces as he drove a car laden with explosives. Suspects arrested in Britain in the last year have been in their late teens. For them the 9/11 attacks are little more than a childhood memory.

There are concerns too about the threat from militants imprisoned after 2001 and now due for release. "Very few appear very repentant," said Inkster.

More than 20 years after the foundation of al-Qaida it appears the group is fading from the world scene. "With hindsight 9/11 looks like the climax of something, not the beginning," said Bergen. But much of the destructive energy harnessed by the group remains, experts say, simply without the focus that Bin Laden and his associates provided. There are too many variables to make any certain predictions but over coming years a new focus could emerge. This could be the result of anarchy in a particular region, state support, the rise of a new charismatic leader or as a consequence of overreaction by western powers to a successful terrorist strike that many officials say is "inevitable".

Noman Benotman, an analyst and former senior Libyan militant who knew Bin Laden, is concerned that expectations raised by the Arab spring will not be met, creating a fertile ground for extremism. What happens in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan will also be important. So will be the evolution of groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan.

The radicalisation and polarisation that came from the wars of the last decade are further factors, along with the complicated roots of contemporary Islamic militancy. "I hope I am wrong but I don't think all of this is finished," Benotman said.

US accuses Iran of aiding al-Qaeda

Today's Washington Post reports on serious accusations leveled by the US Government against Iran:

The Obama administration said Thursday that Iran is helping al-Qaeda funnel cash and recruits into Pakistan for its international operations, the most serious U.S. allegation to date of Iranian aid to the terrorist group.

Documents filed by the Treasury Department accuse Iran of facilitating an al-Qaeda-run support network that transfers large amounts of cash from Middle East donors to al-Qaeda’s top leadership in Pakistan’s tribal region.

A Syrian national who directs the network has been allowed to operate in Iran since 2005, and senior Iranian officials know about money transfers and allow the movement of al-Qaeda foot soldiers through its territory, administration officials said.

Although U.S. officials have repeatedly accused Iran of assisting al-Qaeda, links between the two have been difficult to prove. Al-Qaeda regards the Shiite denomination, the dominant branch of Islam in Iran, as heretical, and Iran has sought at times to crack down on the terrorist group, deporting some operatives and holding others under house arrest.

U.S. officials asserted that the alleged network offered new evidence of Iranian support. “By exposing Iran’s secret deal with al-Qaeda, allowing it to funnel funds and operatives through its territory, we are illuminating yet another aspect of Iran’s unmatched support for terrorism,” said David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

The new allegations against Iran come as the administration is seeking to increase international pressure on the Islamic republic. The White House has successfully pushed for additional sanctions against Iranian companies while renewing accusations that the country’s leaders support militias inside Iraq that carry out attacks against U.S. forces.

On Thursday, Iran denied any links to terrorism. Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations, accused U.S. officials of attempting to tarnish Iran’s reputation with “baseless allegations.”

“Iran itself has been a victim of acts of terrorism in the past which have resulted in the loss of hundreds of innocent Iranian lives,” Miryousefi said. “Iran has always opposed supporting and financing terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.”

The allegations of a Iran-to-Pakistan network center on a Syrian operative, Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil. Khalil has directed the flow of cash and recruits from Persian Gulf states to Pakistan through Iran, according to U.S. officials and documents.

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Khalil and five other alleged operatives, including Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a senior al-Qaeda leader on the Pakistani end of the pipeline. Rahman, a top spiritual adviser to al-Qaeda, was a longtime aide to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader slain this year in Pakistan, and he once served as a bin Laden-appointed emissary to the Iranian government.

Individual operatives collected large amounts of cash, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the money passed through Iraq by way of couriers or informal transfer systems known as hawalas, U.S. officials said. Much of the money was collected in Kuwait and Qatar, two countries that administration officials say have been relatively lax about stanching the flow of money from wealthy Arab donors to al-Qaeda.

.....

Many U.S. counterterrorism officials think that al-Qaeda has been weakened by the death of bin Laden and other top leaders, but the flow of money into the group’s coffers has allowed it to continue to operate, the official said. “Al-Qaeda is not destitute, but it is not flush,” he said. “Now is the time to be tightening the screws.”

Although Shiite-led Iran and Sunni-dominated al-Qaeda are theologically opposed, Iran’s ruling clerics have occasionally aided al-Qaeda, particularly in permitting its operatives to travel through Iranian territory. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the Obama administration’s new choice to head the CIA, told Congress last year that al-Qaeda was using Iran as a “key facilitation hub, where facilitators connect al-Qaeda’s senior leadership to regional affiliates.”

“And although Iranian authorities do periodically disrupt this network by detaining select al-Qaeda facilitators and operational planners, Tehran’s policy in this regard is often unpredictable,” Petraeus said in written testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

BBC News: US 'within reach of strategic defeat of al-Qaeda'

... that's the optimistic headline being reported by BBC News in an article published yesterday afternoon:

New US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said the US is "within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda". Mr Panetta said that following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, key leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere had been identified and would be targeted. He offered the upbeat assessment during his first visit to Afghanistan since taking over at the Pentagon last week.

.... Mr Panetta arrived in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on a previously unannounced visit. Speaking to journalists, Mr Panetta revealed that US analysts had determined that following the death of Bin Laden in May, killing or capturing "around 10 to 20 key leaders" of al-Qaeda and its offshoots would cripple the network.

"We're within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda," he said. "The key is that, having gotten Bin Laden, we've now identified some of the key leadership within al-Qaeda, both in Pakistan as well as in Yemen and other areas."

"If we can be successful at going after them, I think we can really undermine their ability to do any kind of planning, to be able to conduct any kind of attack," he added. "That's why I think it's within reach."

Mr Panetta declined to name all the key leaders, but said they included Bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent, Anwar al-Awlaki, who US officials claim is a senior leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Zawahiri was believed to be hiding in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of western Pakistan, he added, while Awlaki is thought to be living in a remote, mountainous part of central Yemen under the protection of his tribe. Mr Panetta also said he believed the replacement of several key US officials in Afghanistan, including Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, would reset the deteriorating relationship with President Karzai.

"Hopefully, it can be the beginning of a much better relationship than what we've had over the last few years," he said. He said the biggest challenge for the US in the country remained training Afghan forces so they can take over security responsibility by 2014.

"We've made good progress on that, but I think there's a lot more work to do of being able to transition responsibility to them," he added.

BBC News: Yemen AQAP head al-Awlaki 'targeted by drone'

The hunt for Osama bin Laden may be over, but the West (and specifically the US) has its counter-terrorist sights on other leaders, possible successors to OBL:

A US drone attack in Yemen targeted but failed to kill one of al-Qaeda's most influential figures, US reports say. The US-born radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is head of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). 

Two brothers believed to be mid-ranking al-Qaeda officials died in a drone strike in south Yemen on Thursday, Yemeni officials said.

The attack came just days after al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by US Navy Seals. The Pentagon refused to comment on the reports that Anwar al-Awlaki was specifically targeted in Yemen.

According to Yemen's defence ministry, the missile fired by the drone hit a car in in the province of Shabwa carrying two brothers, identified by Yemeni officials as Musa'id and Abdullah Mubarak. But reports from Washington now suggest US commanders had believed they had one of al-Qaeda's most valuable targets in their sights.

"We were hoping it was him," one unnamed US official told CBS News.

The reported attempt to kill Mr Awlaki is believed to be the first known US military strike within Yemen since May 2010, when missiles mistakenly killed one of Mr Saleh's envoys. In September the country's foreign minister said that such unmanned strikes had been suspended.

 BBC News has more: take a look...

Wired: No Pictures, It Did Happen: Al-Qaida Admits Osama’s Dead

Wired Magazine's Danger Room brings indirect confirmation of Osama bin Laden's death at the hands of American special forces, courtesy of an announcement by al-Qaeda itself:

No need to release any gruesome snuff photos to prove it. Al-Qaida itself conceded on Friday that the United States killed its founder and leader. And beyond that big, big confirmation, the terrorist group evidently doesn’t have much else to say about the massive questions it faces about its future.

In its first online statement since the Sunday raid, al-Qaida venerates the life of “the mujahid sheikh Osama bin Laden” and pledges to “continue on the path of jihad” in his absence. But it doesn’t make any specific threats of retaliation, beyond vowing generically to wipe the smile off America’s face and turn its “happiness” to “sorrow.” That’s as far as it goes for the terrorist group displaying continued relevance.

And that’s not the only thing the statement neglects. There’s nothing in here about the crucial question of succession. While the acknowledgement of bin Laden’s death clears the deck for a leadership change, the statement is attributable only to the “general leadership” of al-Qaida. That raises the intriguing prospect that al-Qaida hasn’t actually figured out who replaces bin Laden, despite having over a decade to prepare, and having a cellular structure that replaces lower-level operatives. Somewhere in the White House, counterterrorism aide John Brennan, who’s predicted internal chaos within a post-bin Laden al-Qaida, is smiling.

The biggest irony of the statement is that both the U.S. and al-Qaida suspect Pakistan sold them out. Al-Qaida hectors the “handful of traitors and thieves who have sold everything to the enemies of the nation,” and begs its remaining allies in Pakistan to “rise up to wash [away] this shame.”

The article goes on to survey the fallout of the raid and the successful kill for the terrorist grouping. Take a look!

Economist Daily Chart: Al-Qaeda Attacks

Killing in the name of Islam is the sub-heading applied by The Economist to the latest in its Daily Chart offerings, a cartographic (map) and chronological (timeline) summary of the efforts of al-Qaeda between 1992 and 2008 (Note: only attacks outside of Afghanistan and Iraq are listed for clarity):

BBC News: US forces kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan

HUGE news this morning as US President Barack Obama announces the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, on his orders, by US forces:

Bin Laden was killed in a ground operation outside Islamabad based on US intelligence, the first lead for which emerged last August.

Mr Obama said after "a firefight", US forces took possession of the body.

Bin Laden is believed to be the mastermind of the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and a number of others. He was top of the US' "most wanted" list. Mr Obama said it was "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al-Qaeda".

The US has put its embassies around the world on alert, warning Americans of the possibility of al-Qaeda reprisal attacks for Bin Laden's killing.

Crowds gathered outside the White House in Washington DC, chanting "USA, USA" after the news emerged.

A US official quoted by Associated Press news agency said Bin Laden's body had been buried at sea, although this has not been confirmed.

BBC News has put extensive coverage in place (tabs at top of page), with live updates, background information on the raid, an analysis of possible future reprisals, as well as reaction in the USA and wider afield.

President Obama's speech can also be seen in full on the BBC News website.

Stay tuned to this story: We have yet to hear the full details, I believe, with regard to Pakistan's involvement in Bin Laden's hiding and eventual killing...

WikiLeaks portray Saudi Arabia as cash machine for terrorists

The Guardian has the latest (non)-surprise: a Hillary Clinton memo highlights Gulf states' failure to block funding for groups like al-Qaida, Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton.

"More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups," says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide," she said.

Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The cables highlight an often ignored factor in the Pakistani and Afghan conflicts: that the violence is partly bankrolled by rich, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them.

 The rest of the article is well worth a read. Interestingly, American cartoonists Cox & Forkum produced a cartoon several years ago that cleverly captured suspicion for this double-handed activity that even then prevailed amongst many in the West:

West cannot defeat al-Qaeda, says UK forces chief

BBC Online today reports on recent comments made by General Sir David Richards:

The West can only contain not defeat militant groups such as al-Qaeda, the head of the UK's armed forces has said.

General Sir David Richards, a former Nato commander in Afghanistan, said Islamist militancy would pose a threat to the UK for at least 30 years.

But he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper a clear-cut victory over militants was not achievable.

The BBC's Frank Gardner said the comments reflect a "new realism" in UK and US counter-terrorism circles.

Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11751888

Yemen Package Bombs in Suspected Terrorist Attacks

The big international news story of the last 48 hours has been the discovery of package bombs apparently consigned to cargo planes from terrorist operatives in the Yemen.

Now that the media has gained some perspective on the story, we can spend some time examining this new threat:

The Guardian - Terror bombs were primed to down cargo planes in mid-air (30/10/2010) - Security officials say explosive packages found on US-bound aircraft in UK and Dubai were meant to bring them down

The Guardian - Cargo bombs from Yemen open new front in al-Quaida terror war (30/10/2010) - The discovery of explosive devices on board planes in the UK and Dubai appears to confirm Saudi warnings that terror groups based in the Arabian Peninsula are determine to mount a new wave of attacks on the west

The bomb was found inside a printer and its toner cartridge

Nine years ago today, Tuesday September 11th 2001, nineteen terrorists slammed three hijacked airliners into New York's World Trade Center and Washington DC's Pentagon building—a fourth hijacked airliner was brought down by its passengers before it reached the terrorists' target.

Produced in 2007, 102 Minutes That Changed America is a compelling documentary of the events that morning in New York, composed largely of eyewitness footage captured by the public and re-played virtually in 'real time'. Courtesy of one member, YouTube currently hosts the documentary (albeit in approx. 10 minute segments).

View with discretion—although not gratuitous, several scenes are of a disturbing nature—but definitely do view it, as witness to the largest act of terrorism perpetrated against the United States and as (one of) the defining events of the new century:



For ease of access, the remaining segments can be linked to via the following user page: http://www.youtube.com/user/zinkt#g/u