Bad Guys Go Boom

First, there's this report from the Counterterrorism blog:

According to various reports from credible mujahideen sources, Abu Omar Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Saif (a.k.a. Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Saif al-Jaber)--a top tier Saudi Arabian Al-Qaida commander in Chechnya and personal military advisor to Shamil Basayev--has been killed during a Russian counterterrorism operation in neighboring Dagestan. Unable to escape after Russian soldiers backed by helicopters surrounded his temporary hideout, Abu Omar allegedly detonated an explosive device he was carrying and collapsed the building on top of himself.

Score one for the good guys. Chechnya has been a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists for quite some time, and Basayev was responsible for the slaughter in Beslan School #1, which killed more than 330 people, mostly women and children who were attending the first day of school. Good riddance, and this should help the Russians in their efforts against Islamic terrorists along their Southern frontier.

Then, there's the report from Pakistan that a US Predator launched a missile into a house where five al Qaeda terrorists were operating, including Hamza Rabia.

The operational commander of al-Qaida and possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization, Hamza Rabia, was killed early Thursday morning by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials told NBC News.

Pakistan's president later confirmed the militant leader's death.

Again, this is great news. While Pakistan hasn't exactly been thrilled to let people know that the US has been operating CIA ops within their borders, eliminating al Qaeda strongholds in Pakistan will improve the security in Afghanistan and South Asia. Pakistan has a bunch on its plate, mostly in the form of coming to grips with the humanitarian emergency that resulted from the earthquake earlier this year that devastated the region between India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. While the Pakistani attention was focused on the humanitarian efforts, terrorists have attempted to seize the opportunity to expand their bases of operations, and that's why continuing operations in this region must continue.

And this leads me back to a story that ran in the Times yesterday. It claims that terrorist groups are growing in number. That's only part of the story. To put things in context, you need to dig deeper. What is the key factor, the number of names of groups that are running around, or the number of terrorists themselves? I'd posit that it's simply the number of terrorists. Each cell within al Qaeda could simply call itself something new, and it would be claimed that there are more 'terrorists' floating about, even though the actual number of terrorists hasn't changed.

Then, there's the fact that if we know of additional terrorist groups operating, it is because we now have better intel on these groups and can do a better job of tracking, interdicting, and eliminating the threats.

To buttress this point, just look at how Rabia became the number three terrorist in al Qaeda. All the guys above him were killed or captured. We keep taking out the terrorists all over the place, and the terrorists respond by trying to loosen the operational ties between individual cells - masking their identities under new affiliations. Lower ranked guys become higher ranked guys, but they're not nearly as capable as the guys they're replacing. This doesn't mean that the number of terror groups has increased, only that they're masking their identities and the shrinking ranks of terrorists. After all, a lone terrorist could start attacks and call himself his own terror group.

And, it doesn't mean that the threat has been eliminated. It just means we have to continue pushing even harder to eliminate these terror groups.

Also noting the current culling of terror masters: Winds of Change, alphabet city, California Yankee, Don Singleton, and Security Watchtower

UPDATE 12/4/2005:
Further sites noting the recent US coalition's culling of terror masters: Confederate Yankee, Protein Wisdom

UPDATE: 12/4/2005:
The US national Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley made the rounds today on the morning talk shows, and said that the US couldn't confirm the death of Rabia, though Pakistani President Musharraf said he was killed.