Keeping Secrets

The New York Times provides today's headline: C.I.A. Held Qaeda Leader in Secret Jail for Months

Someone break out the waaambulance because I don't care that he was held in secret for months. I'm happy that someone was able to keep a secret for as long as they did - without breaching operational security on intel gathering that saves lives. That he was captured and held without the media picking up on it for months lets me know that there are still folks in the CIA and military that pride themselves on maintaining secrets and gathering intel that helps direct military operations and further intel gathering on the inner workings of the al Qaeda terror operations inside Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.

The Times has problems with secret detentions of terrorists so that we can obtain crucial and timely intel. Yet, the NYT and other leftists want to have GitMo shut down, as if they have a better solution for where to keep these terrorists. The announcement came after he was transferred from the secret facility to GitMo.

Let's not forget that this guy was only a few small notches below Osama and above Zawahiri on the hit parade. He was as connected as terrorists come, and his connections may have included those inside Saddam's government.

Once again, it seems that the NYT is more concerned about a terrorist's civil rights than the rights of the US to defend itself against a genocidal enemy.

Then, there's this minor issue of ignoring a couple of inconvenient facts:

American officials have long been worried about efforts by Qaeda leadership in Pakistan to exert control over its Iraqi offshoot, known as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and the dispatch of Mr. Iraqi to help run the Iraqi affiliate has raised concern among American military officials that the links between the groups are growing.

“We do definitely see links to the greater Al Qaeda network,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.

But the relationship between Qaeda fighters in Iraq and the top leadership has appeared to wax and wane over the years, often over tactical disagreements.

In 2005, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command, wrote a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then the top Al Qaeda operative in Iraq, urging him to refrain from killing Shiites. But since then, terrorist experts have said that they see Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as largely independent of the organization hub in Pakistan.

Al Iraqi was an Iraqi who was in the Iraqi military under Saddam, and likely maintained his contacts. Who was he in contact with and can that knowledge be exploited to bring down the insurgency and al Qaeda operations?

Zarqawi, al Qaeda's prior head in Iraq, had no problem slaughtering everyone in sight before he ended up well and truly dead after US airstrikes. al Iraqi probably was sent back to Iraq to impose better operational controls and better coordination between terror cells so that they inflict as much carnage as possible on US forces, and not simply slaughtering anyone and everyone in their path.

Also, it would also make sense that there were tactical disagreements between the various terror cells because some had military training while most others did not - and some were far more willing to shed Muslim blood than others.

Bill Roggio looks at the implications of al Iraqi's capture and what it means for operations in Afghanistan and the links between Iran and the terrorist organization. And note that al Iraqi was in contact with al Qaeda located inside Iran.

Abd al-Hadi is also said to have worked with Saif al Adel, al Qaeda's operational planner who is currently in Iran. The two are said to have planted the seeds for al Qaeda's involvement in Iraq's insurgency.

Abd al-Hadi's capture comes as General Petraeus outlined Iranian Qods Force's involvement with the February 20 attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, which led to the aborted kidnapping and subsequent murder of five U.S. soldiers. Qods Force armed, trained, and advised the Qazili network, which carried out the attack.

U.S. forces detained several senior leaders of the Qazili network, and captured a "22-page memorandum on a computer that detailed the planning, preparation, approval process and conduct of the operation that resulted in five of our soldiers being killed in Karbala," said Gen. Petraeus.

Gen. Petraeus also discussed the Sheibani network, "which brings explosively formed projectiles into Iraq from Iran," as well as other deadly weapons from Iran. An American military intelligence official informs us that the Sheibani network is one of Qods Force's foreign networks in Iraq, just as Hezbollah is an Iranian arm in Lebanon.

The deadly nexus between al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia must be closely examined, especially because of the way the terror group is funded and safe havens provided. Regimes may be providing lip service to cracking down on al Qaeda, but functionally they have simply hidden the way they provide assistance, and alternatively, have provided Iran the means to hold sway over the group because they are far more willing to engage in terrorism against the US via their proxy forces - Hizbullah and Hamas.

The knowledge gathered from those terrorist groups is certainly being shared among other terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, and Iran is serving as a conduit for terrorists.