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Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
Showing posts with label Ayman al Zawahiri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ayman al Zawahiri. Show all posts
Since the 9/11 attacks, the US has gone after al Qaeda all around the globe, and those efforts have paid off. The group is now down to essentially one recognizable face - Ayman al Zawahiri, who was Osama bin Laden's right hand man since the group came into existence.
Zawahiri is believed to be in the frontier provinces of Pakistan, and he's probably spending most of his time trying not to get caught by US spymasters who have the quite lethal UAVs at their disposal.
As a result, according to senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, there now remains only one leader of any consequence in al Qaeda and that is Ayman al Zawahiri, the tetchy Egyptian surgeon who became the head of the group following the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan in May 2011.
Zawahiri, presumably, is keenly aware of the fate of so many of his longtime colleagues in al Qaeda. He will be expending considerable energy not to end up on the business end of a missile fired by a CIA drone if he, too, is hiding in the Pakistani tribal regions where the drone strikes have been concentrated.
Meanwhile, Zawahiri faces an almost impossible task to follow through on al Qaeda's main mission: attacking the United States, or failing that, one of its close allies.
Al Qaeda hasn't conducted a successful attack in the West since the bombings on London's transportation system on July 7, 2005, and of course, the group hasn't succeeded in attacking the United States for more than a decade.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains committed to carrying out attacks against the US and its interests around the world but hasn't managed to successfully carry out the kind of high profile attacks that the group was known for previously. Attempts to take down airlines have failed, though the group only has to do so once in order to achieve its aims.
It's a far cry from the 9/11 attacks and the terror group's largest effort since the 9/11 attacks was in the London subway bombings in 2005.
The group remains committed to carrying out attacks, but the threat has morphed into concerns about lone wolf individuals or groups - terrorists who share goals but aren't directly tied to al Qaeda or Zawahiri.
Just because there are lesser known terrorists (though that list still includes Adam Gadahn and Adnan G. El Shukrijumah) involved in the group doesn't mean we should discount the threat. We need to recognize the work done to get to this point, and the hard work ahead in trying to keep the nation safe from these terror groups and individuals who are intent upon doing harm to the US. At the same time, the risks from a successful attack are quite low to most Americans.
Aboud Al-Zomor, a military intelligence officer and one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (and a forerunner to al Qaeda) who was tried and convicted for his role in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, was released without fanfare in the wake of Hosni Mubarak being forced from power.
He's quite unrepentant about the assassination - that the peace deal with Israel was proof that Sadat needed to be removed from power at any cost. Or at least the straw that broke the camel's back. He and his fellow EIJ terrorists wanted to usher in an Islamic state and saw Sadat as a roadblock; and yet Zomor also doesn't find Sadat to be nearly as bad as Mubarak, who was far more corrupt in his power.
When Zomor was imprisoned, Ayman al Zawahiri took over. You might have heard of Zawahiri.
More than six weeks after Osama bin Laden was killed in an American commando raid, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s No. 2, is assuming the leadership of the international terrorist organization, according to a statement posted online Thursday.
Mr. Zawahri, an Egyptian who long served as second in command to Bin Laden, had been expected to inherit leadership of the terrorist organization, though the delay in announcing his succession led some counterterrorism analysts to see signs of a power struggle at the top of Al Qaeda following Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2.
“The general command of Al Qaeda, after the completion of consultation, announces that Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahri has assumed the responsibility of the leadership of the group,” Al Qaeda said in a statement presented by the Al Fajr Media Center, the terror network’s online voice, and posted on jihadist Internet forums.
***
Trained as a doctor, Mr. Zawahri, 59, has been described as the operational leader of the group. But he is seen as abrasive to fellow militants, and lacking Bin Laden’s charismatic appeal to Islamists and ability to command their loyalty, leading to questions over whether he would be able to continue drawing jihadist recruits. In addition, his new role may widen the longstanding split in Al Qaeda between his Egyptian contingent and militants of other nationalities.
Zawahri has been called the operational brains of Al Qaeda. Really no shock here that he would assume the leadership role. In some ways, this is actually good for the United States. Zawahri has long been a target of U.S. forces and is a known entity. The intelligence community does not have to readjust to a new leader that they know little or nothing about. Plus, given his lack of broad appeal across Al Qaeda, this could mean some in fighting or even a weakening of the group.
What it does show is that Al Qaeda is still a dangerous entity that the U.S. and the world cannot write off. The U.S. cannot fall back on a pre-9/11 mentality just because Bin Laden is dead. Zawahri is a dangerous individual, Al Qaeda is a dangerous group, and America must remain vigilant to be secure.
While much of the speculation as to who will assume the role as top terrorist in al Qaeda has fallen on Ayman al Zawahiri, there appears to be rumblings over whether he is sufficiently charismatic enough to keep the group going and whether he can get along with other terrorists.
Other possibilities include Anwar al Awlaki, whose followers have carried out several high profile attempted attacks in recent years.
An elusive figure who often wears heavily tinted aviator glasses, Kashmiri remains at large and active in plotting new attacks against the West, U.S. officials say. It was Kashmiri who, according to U.S. officials, was the key figure behind a suspected plot for multiple attacks in European cities, patterned after the 2008 Mumbai terror strike, which led to a widely publicized State Department travel advisory in October.
While Ayman al-Zawahri remains the “presumed” successor to bin Laden, the longtime al-Qaida deputy is deeply unpopular in some circles and his elevation is by no means guaranteed, a senior U.S. official told reporters this weekend. If al-Zawahri doesn’t make it, Kashmiri may emerge as the dark horse in the ensuing power struggle, the official told NBC on Monday.
“His star has been on the rise for the last several years,” said the official. “He would have to be on the al-Qaida short list.”
Kashmiri was at one point a member of the Pakistani military, serving as a commando in a Special Services Group that was once tasked with training Afghan mujahedeen to fight the Soviets.
He was later reassigned to train Kashmiri fighters against the Indians, but broke from the Pakistani army and joined a terrorist group — called Harakat-ul Jihad-i-Islami, or HUJI (“Movement of Islamic Holy War”) — that has been closely aligned with al-Qaida.
So far, U.S. officials have remained tight-lipped on whether they have found evidence in bin Laden’s compound that shows direct contacts between the now deceased al-Qaida leader and Kashmiri. But hints of such links — and of Kashmiri’s interest in mass casualty terror plots — are contained in U.S. court documents.
While Kashmiri was originally trained and worked closely with the Pakistani military and security services, he turned on Pervez Musharaf's regime and even targeted him in assassination attempts. His cadre of terrorists have carried out attacks in Pakistan, India, Kashmir, and plotted against the West, including a plot against Jyllands Posten for their running cartoons depicting Mohammad.
He's known to use the frontier provinces of Pakistan as his base of operations.
The US labeled him a specially designated global terrorist in August 2010, which puts him in the same ranks as the ex-bin Laden and Zawahiri. The US has attempted to carry out UAV airstrikes against him in the past, and have come close on several occasions, particularly after capturing several of his top henchmen.
Depending on who to believe, one would think that al Qaeda had three spheres of operation - the strategic, military, and ideological - with bin Laden, Kashmiri, and Zawahiri running each, respectively. However, with bin Laden's death and the cache of intel gathered from his compound in Abbottabad, that thinking may have been sorely misguided. It would appear that bin Laden was in command and control over most operational and strategic thinking of the terror group, using couriers to shuttle information between him and his subordinates.
Kashmiri, being central to these discussions, therefore may be in a better position to assume the leadership role. He's got the military credibility among the Taliban and knows his way through the region better than others, including Zawahiri. He also benefits from knowing Pakistani tactics and probabilities - where and how the Pakistanis operate their security forces and military. That's invaluable in evading capture or being struck in Pakistani airstrikes.
US Special Forces from SEAL Team Six carried out a daring raid last night and killed Osama bin Laden in a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan last night, which is located 30 miles north of the capital of Islamabad and 120 miles from the Afghan border. The news hits hard here in the New York City metro area where al Qaeda carried out the deadliest terror attack in history, murdering more than 3,000 people and destroying the World Trade Center. For the families of those killed or injured in the attacks, this is a bittersweet moment since they will never get closure - they will always be lacking their loved ones who were so cruelly taken from them on the orders of bin Laden.
Once the news was broadcast following President Obama's official announcement last night, the area around Ground Zero was one of jubilation and reflection (more here). This morning, broadcasters and hundreds of police were controlling the gathered crowds and those trying to make their way to jobs in and around Lower Manhattan.
A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American counterterrorism operations. The property was so secure, so large, that American officials guessed it was built to hide someone far more important than a mere courier.
What followed was eight months of painstaking intelligence work, culminating in a helicopter assault by American military and intelligence operatives that ended in the death of Bin Laden on Sunday and concluded one of history’s most extensive and frustrating manhunts.
American officials said that Bin Laden was shot in the head after he tried to resist the assault force, and that one of his sons died with him.
For nearly a decade, American military and intelligence forces had chased the specter of Bin Laden through Pakistan and Afghanistan, once coming agonizingly close and losing him in a pitched battle at Tora Bora, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. As Obama administration officials described it, the real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.
Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.
Still, it was not until August when they tracked him to the compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital.
C.I.A. analysts spent the next several weeks examining satellite photos and intelligence reports to determine who might be living at the compound, and a senior administration official said that by September the C.I.A. had determined there was a “strong possibility” that Bin Laden himself was hiding there.
It was hardly the spartan cave in the mountains where many had envisioned Bin Laden to be hiding. Rather, it was a mansion on the outskirts of the town’s center, set on an imposing hilltop and ringed by 12-foot-high concrete walls topped with barbed wire.
The property was valued at $1 million, but it had neither a telephone nor an Internet connection. Its residents were so concerned about security that they burned their trash rather putting it on the street for collection like their neighbors.
American officials believed that the compound, built in 2005, was designed for the specific purpose of hiding Bin Laden.
Months more of intelligence work would follow before American spies felt highly confident that it was indeed Bin Laden and his family who were hiding in there — and before President Obama determined that the intelligence was solid enough to begin planning a mission to go after the Qaeda leader.
Bin Laden, however would not come quietly, and he returned fire. Members of the team killed bin Laden and extracted his body to a base in Afghanistan where he was positively identified with facial recognition software and other means. From there, his body was buried at sea.
Now, there was speculation that no country would accept his remains as being the reason that his body was buried at sea, but I think the more likely explanation is that the US simply didn't want his burial location to turn into a rallying cry for al Qaeda and those loyal to the jihad. A burial at sea wipes eliminates that possibility, but the ideology lives on.
Al Qaeda has been seriously damaged by the attack and death of bin Laden, but the group is far from defanged. Ayman al Zawahiri is still at large, and the terror group continues to receive shelter from Taliban and utilizes the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan as a base of operations.
The terror group will continue to attempt further attacks, and it's important to note that while bin Laden was the face and major fundraiser for the group and pressed home the notion of jihad, Zawahiri and others have been the more public figures in the past several years. Expect Zawahiri to take a more active role in leading al Qaeda and spreading the jihadist rhetoric and ideology, along with Anwar al-Awlaki. Both men have been spreading jihadi ideology online and rallying others to their cause.
As noted above, the US didn't let Pakistan's government know about the mission until it was completed. There's damned good reasons for that - the Pakistani government is far from reliable and the ISI is likely harboring further Taliban and al Qaeda within the country and not acting against the terror group whose leader lived in comfort just yards from Pakistan's army military academy where the country's army trains its cadre of leaders and in a city where many in the army go to retire. A Pakistani army division headquarters is located there as well, making this a major center for the Pakistani military.
Bin Laden's death doesn't mean the end of the conflict against al Qaeda and the Islamic extremists who justify attacks against the US and the West. It just means that there will be a new face associated with terror attacks to come. That doesn't mean that his death shouldn't be lauded for eliminating a scourge of humanity whose actions set in motion the worst terror attacks in history and tremendous bloodshed and misery for many throughout the world.
The successful raid also raises new questions about what the Pakistani intel service (ISI) knew, and how the Pakistanis were unable to located bin Laden when he was living so openly and so close to major Pakistani military installations.
Finally, I want to personally thank all those who stuggle to keep us safe and go after these terrorists, along with President Obama for green-lighting the mission and enabling the military and intel services to coordinate and execute the mission with precision and professionalism.
UPDATE:
Here's a map showing the final location of where bin Laden lived before the raid:
UPDATE:
This is perhaps the most poignant of all the photos taken in the past 48 hours and was captured by a NYT cameraman:
UPDATE: Pakistanis are both stunned by the news, and many are angered over the attack on bin Laden. Former Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf is angered at the violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. Considering that Pakistan's own ISI routinely ignores Afghanistan's sovereignty by providing aid and comfort to Taliban and al Qaeda, and refuses to deal with embedded Taliban and al Qaeda within Pakistan's own territory, they government in Islamabad is going to be on the hot seat to explain how they completely missed the fact that bin Laden was living large just yards from the Pakistani military academy.
Clearly, this is going to lead to a re-evaluation of US-Pakistani relations - both the public declarations and the private behind the scenes level discussions. Pakistan's ISI and military simply can't be trusted, especially with time sensitive information to maintain operational security, and that was a major reason that President Obama kept the mission close to the vest and didn't inform any US allies, lest any information leak before the mission was carried out.
This also means that the Islamists in Pakistan may carry out additional attacks against the US/NATO/ISAF supply lines, and perhaps the Pakistani military may no longer give NATO/US/ISAF forces the logistical support they have had in the past (although the Pakistani military hasn't exactly done a great job protecting those convoys in the past). President Obama must have weighed the potential repercussions of taking this action versus informing Pakistan, etc., and found that the benefits outweighed the potential fallout/blowback. I think that was the right move.
After bursts of fire over 40 minutes, 22 people were killed or captured. One of the dead was Osama bin Laden, done in by a double tap -- boom, boom -- to the left side of his face. His body was aboard the choppers that made the trip back. One had experienced mechanical failure and was destroyed by U.S. forces, military and White House officials tell National Journal.
So, who was captured along with who else was killed in the raid? That's going to make for some interesting reading down the line.
I can't say I'm sorry to hear that, but the Guardian reports that al Qaeda faces recruitment challenges.
Speaking to the Guardian in advance of tomorrow's eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, western counter-terrorism officials and specialists in the Muslim world said the organisation faced a crisis that was severely affecting its ability to find, inspire and train willing fighters.
Its activity is increasingly dispersed to "affiliates" or "franchises" in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the centre are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.
Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaida's Pakistani "core", in the jargon of western intelligence agencies.
Interrogation documents seen by the Guardian show that European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.
"Core" al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.
The most significant recent development is evidence that al-Qaida's alliance with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan is fraying, boosting the prospect of acquiring intelligence that will lead to Bin Laden's capture or death. Despite an intensive US-led manhunt, there has not been a credible lead on the Saudi-born al-Qaida leader in years. Bin Laden's nickname among some CIA hunters is "Elvis" because there have been so many false sightings of him.
When you consider that the terrorist group is being relentlessly hunted down in former safe havens like Pakistan and Afghanistan, it's affiliates in Iraq were decimated, and even Hamas considers al Qaeda a mortal threat to its own terror operations, you can see why al Qaeda has problems.
However, that's not quite the full story. Al Qaeda may be losing its power as a distinct entity, but its worldview and the pursuit of jihad is not going away. It's still a very powerful force in places like Pakistan, Iran, Somalia, and other failed states and regions around the world. Instead of groups directly linked to al Qaeda, there are more freelance groups and cells operating to plot attacks. Groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat al-Muslimeen fill the void.
Even in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban under the Mehsud clan took up al Qaeda's banner and were effectively holding off Pakistan's military in the frontier provinces. Recent airstrikes killed Baitullah Mehsud, but a relative picked up where he left off.
The problem is that when you drop the number of members in a core group below a certain point, the ability to track, let alone penetrate, the terror group to gain intel about whereabouts, plans, and coordination with operational terror cells becomes increasingly more difficult. With the core leadership down to 6-8 terrorists, finding those terrorists in the vast space of the frontier provinces of Pakistan and Afghanistan is exceedingly difficult.
It requires continued vigilance to prevent another mass casualty attack, and to consider attacks in venues that might not be suspected.
Overnight, the Israeli military announced that three more Israeli soldiers were killed. They were members of the elite Golani Brigade, whose predecessors defended Israel's northern borders and who saved Israel from ruin during the 1973 Yom Kippur War when their unit went into the breach and stopped the oncoming Syrian armor from pouring down and out of the Golan Heights. The incident involved an errant tank shell, which shows just how difficult things are for Israeli soldiers fighting in the urban warrens of Gaza City and the refugee camps.
Hamas is busy trying to spin things in their favor, but the fact is that Hamas is desperate for a timeout. They've been hit hard, but they need a hudna. There's no way Israel should relent. Now is time to slam the hammer down on Hamas. Israel's future deserves no less than to ensure that Hamas is destroyed.
Speaking of the diplomatic effort, there's much talk, but not a whole lot of action. It's diplomats doing what they do to look important, but not much else. The UN continues to make statements of moral equivalence - putting Hamas and Israel on equal footing when anyone who knows the difference between good and evil would demand that the UN support Israel against Hamas and see that the terrorist group is destroyed. Of course, the history of the UN since 1948 has been one to try and undermine Israel's right to exist at every turn and the anti-Israel lobby is constantly trying to stop Israel from defending itself. Any ceasefire or truce demands concessions of Israel while the terrorists walk scot-free. Just look at Hizbullah in Lebanon. UNIFIL continues looking the other way as Hizbullah maintains their military forces, despite UNIFIL mandates to disarm Hizbullah.
Israeli Defense Minister Barak is prepping for a long term operation, knowing that Hamas has squirreled away significant weapons caches for a prolonged fight. He needs Prime Minister Olmert to give him the time to carry out the necessary operations to take out Hamas leaders and their thugs who have brought nothing but pain and misery to Gaza.
It was at that meeting that ministers confided that Mubarak had told them 'Hamas must not be allowed to emerge from the fighting with the upper hand.'
Hamas believes Egypt is trying to broker a ceasefire and sent a delegation to the city on Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meantime has told visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Israel will not honour a ceasefire imposed by the UN Security Council. It will only honour an agreement that it agrees to, the Israeli prime minister told Sarkozy.
Israel wants the rocket attacks to stop, and the smuggling of weapons from Egypt to cease. Mubarak, whose country patrols the border with Egypt, was insisting Monday there was no smuggling, that supplies to Hamas were coming from ships off Gaza.
Israel has said it is a member state of the UN and should not be put on the same basis as Hamas, which it says is a 'terrorist organization.'
Still, there are two jihadis in particular who are notably quiet about the situation in Gaza. You would think that they'd be out front leading the charge against Israel and the West especially given their prior statements and how they've repeatedly tried to tie everything that happens around the world to Israel and the Palestinians.
You know who I'm talking about: Al Qaeda's own top two - Ayman al Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden.
Both are notable by their silence. Perhaps they're having problems getting their videos out from the undisclosed locations near the ninth plane of Hell or the NWFP (interchangeable under certain circumstances as a little know fact is that Hell can freeze over)? Maybe they're dead? I find it hard to believe that they're having trouble find the words to put together to a video or audio tape, although their propagandists might be having trouble getting the video and audio to sync up properly.
Silence is usually golden, but in this case, it speaks volumes.
Now, it's possible that they will be heard from soon enough. Maybe their next video or audio will mention the situation in Gaza. I just wouldn't hold my breath and I certainly wouldn't expect to hear anything new from them. It's the same story we've been hearing for decades; someone is going to destroy Israel and yet when the latest terrorists and their terror masters try, Israel swats them hard. Each time restraint is mistaken as weakness, although Israel's reluctance means that we have to keep replaying the same stories every few years and more civilians die than if Israel simply fought to defeat its enemies.
The great equalizer, however, is the media war. Hamas still benefits greatly from media sympathizers who will unquestioningly run agitprop for Hamas and savaging Israel's defensive actions. MSNBC is particularly awful at maintaining objectivity in US media. The British media is far worse and I wont even begin to get into the sewers and fever swamps of the state-run propagandists of the Arab world.
I've been going through the photos regularly on Getty Images and Daylife, and if you counted all the photos of injured children and those of injured adults, you'd think that Israel targeted only children. There's a stunning lack of adults being captured on film being brought to the hospitals or receiving medical care at all.
I can't imagine why that's the case. Maybe it has something to do with media bias and the bias of the stringers taking the photos - knowing full well that showing images of terrorists being wheeled in to the hospitals isn't going to make a convincing case that Israel stops bombing, but show a bunch of children dead or injured, and you might get the sympathies sufficiently riled to get the diplomats to stop Israel before Hamas is thoroughly dismembered.
Reuters makes nonsensical claims and headlines, which do nothing but bolster Hamas. They claim that Israel is ignoring the possibility of a truce, but even Reuters had to report that Hamas is urging its fellow terrorists to fight every street and to the last breath and last man. Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades has the details. So does Omri at Mere Rhetoric, who notes the New York Times doing the same thing.
There's a reason that the Gazan hospitals are crowded with patients and it's left out of practically every report. Israel has stated that Hamas is using hospitals as terror command posts, although doctors there deny it (with the omnipresent Hamas thugs at the facilities, there's no way to trust that without searching every inch of the hospital to be sure). Reports also suggest that Hamas thugs have set up hospital facilities for their wounded terrorists, but are taking aid and relief supplies meant for civilians injured in the fighting.
Israel would not have gone into Gaza had Hamas not fired thousands of rockets at Israel.
Israel left Gaza in 2005, and all it got for that unilateral effort was kassams that rain down on Sderot and other Israeli communities throughout Southern Israel. People within range of the kassams have less time to react than they do to read this post. They have seconds.
That conditions for Gazans is bad now is the fault of no one but the Hamas terrorists who wished for a war with Israel, and Hamas all they could to ensure that one would bring the maximium amount of civilian casualties.
None of this matters to the many anti-Israel demonstrators around the world who display their real intentions. It isn't anti-war sentiments driving much of the demonstrators, but raging anti-Semitism. Israel's existence is sufficient for the demonstrations, and the grievance theater surrounding these displays shows just how deluded so many of these people are. They demand nothing less than jihad and the destruction of Israel - in so many words.
Hamas thugs call for killing Israeli children, as though Hamas hasn't been busy trying to achieve that goal. After all, they tried to blow up this kindergarden class. Sadly, that's not a new call either, as Hamas has routinely called for the murder of Israelis of all ages, and has managed to succeed in their terror attacks on occasion. That they haven't killed more people is the result of Israel securing its borders, manning checkpoints to stop suicide bombers and gunmen, and sealing the border with Gaza to prevent terror attacks.
It was that latter part that sent Hamas scrambling for rockets. Since they couldn't infiltrate Israel with suicide bombers, they went with the next best thing - rockets. And they've sent thousands into Israel - each with the murderous intent to slay Israelis.
The UN Security Council will be meeting shortly to discuss the situation in Gaza. I have no doubt that the focus will be on Israel to stop attacking Hamas. Much less discussion will be had on Hamas and dismantling the terrorist infrastructure. The US has already said that it will veto any plan that is unbalanced.
Much will be made of the fact that Prime Minister Olmert rejected a 48 hour ceasefire, but the fact is that Hamas has said that they would never entertain a ceasefire unless Israel stops attacking and destroying Hamas terrorists. Hamas has never said it would stop firing its rockets into Israel.
Bret Stephens posits an endgame for Israel, one that includes the possibility for peace. Key among Israel's options is that it must assert aggressive deterrence, a policy that had been all but abandoned by Olmert in the runup to both the Hizbullah war and the operation in Gaza.
And, as a reminder to anyone who thinks that Fatah is a preferable alternative to Hamas, many Fatah are sympathizing and showing solidarity with Hamas. They have short memories given that Hamas took to throwing Fatah thugs off rooftops in the Palestinian civil war and has been murdering Fatah in Gaza during the current conflict claiming that they are collaborating with Israel. Both terrorist groups have sought the destruction of Israel, but Hamas has been the more violent of the two, if only because Fatah was lured by kleptocracy.
MSNBC continues its pro-Hamas stance, by claiming that 500,000 Gazans are in danger. No word in the headline about the nearly equal amount of Israelis endangered by Hamas rockets that can reach as far as Ashdod and Beersheeba.
UPDATE: Two separate reports from Gaza indicate that Israeli airstrikes have apparently hit two schools. The NY Daily News reports that an attack on one school killed three, while another wire report says that 30 have been killed in a second attack.
No doubt that the anti-Israel brigade will try to do as much damage politically and with the full force and effect of propaganda from the airstrikes if they killed civilians. The problem is that Hamas is operating in and among civilians, and there's no way to know if Hamas wasn't operating in close proximity to those schools at the time of the attacks. Hamas has no regard for human lives, least of all Gazans, who are simply props for use as propaganda against Israel. If they can't kill Israelis with their rockets, dead Palestinians will suffice since it means that they can use the dead to increase pressure on Israel to stop attacking and destroying Hamas capabilities.
Hamas has repeatedly used UNRWA facilities to operate. The Islamic terrorists have used UN ambulances to transport weapons and equipment, and have repeatedly taken advantage of the refugee camps to wage war against Israel. UNRWA has an obligation to maintain the peace, but has repeatedly chosen to look the other way.
UPDATE: Carl in Jerusalem is reminding readers not to jump to conclusions about what happened in Gaza and the early reports of Israel attacking schools. He reminds people of the Qana incident, which was claimed to be a massacre, but turned out to be no such thing. It was a hoax. He also makes the same observation I did that Hamas is using human shields, and notes Israeli radio reports claiming Hamas was dragging children into buildings where they were operating.
UPDATE: Elder of Ziyon notes that the Guardian has published an op-ed agitprop piece courtesy of Hamas terror master Khalid Meshaal. It's full of lies, distortions, and propaganda claiming that Israel is behind the attacks. Elder of Ziyon cuts through the agitprop and rebuts each of the lies succinctly. Sadly, I expect to see Meshaal's writings (or those of other terrorist sympathizers or spokesthugs) included in the Washington Post or New York Times within the next few days as they make the rounds.
This is why Israel is doing what it must. Hamas is steadfast in their demands that Israel be destroyed. Honor and elevate bloody murdering terrorists. That's what they are, that's what they call for, and the world ignores all that to find fault with Israel instead.
Meanwhile Israeli humanitarian aid to Gaza continues to roll into Gaza to help Gazans, who will take the aid and still demand Israel's destruction; Hamas will steal it and/or use it for their terror purposes, but the world finds fault with Israel.
Ah, now this seems odd. We've got a Reuters caption claiming that the following photo is of the school where an airstrike killed 3.
6 hours ago: Palestinians survey the scene after an Israeli air strike at a United Nations school in Gaza January 6, 2009. An Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in the United Nations school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical workers and U.N. officials said.
What exactly was fired? Machine guns? Because it certainly wasn't anything larger than that - Hellfires blow up cars and leave craters and bombs leave gaping craters. Here? A small hole punched in the wall and smaller shrapnel holes. I think we've got some real questions about what happened at that school.
Israel may have opened fire on Hamas operating in close proximity to the school, and by the looks of it, used limited firepower in the process. The only sources providing details on who was killed or injured in the attack are Palestinians, who aren't exactly going to say that Hamas thugs were involved.
UPDATE: As a vivid reminder of what Israel is up against, here's Hamas busy firing kassams from outside a Gaza school in 2007. Some things don't change. They're still at it today:
More at Gateway Pundit. So, keep that in mind as the reports come in on the incident in Gaza.
UPDATE: Jules Crittenden kicks the media like a rented mule for its ongoing horrid coverage of the situation in Gaza and how they repeatedly present only one side of the conflict in any detail - that of Hamas and the Gazans, instead of focusing on why Israel is fighting back against Hamas in the first place - because Hamas couldn't stop itself from trying to destroy Israel.
UPDATE: Kenneth at LGF points out that there are now conflicting reports about what happened in or near a school in Gaza. An AP report notes that Hamas fired on Israeli forces from the school and the Israeli return fire set off secondary explosions - meaning that Hamas used the school as a weapons depot:
n Israeli official says Palestinian militants fired on Israeli soldiers from the courtyard of a U.N. school where dozens of people died in fiery explosions.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the army is still drafting the country's official response to the incident.
The Israeli official said "hostile fire" was directed at the soldiers from within the school. He said soldiers returned fire and multiple explosions went off, presumably emanating from munitions stored there.
John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said most of the casualties at the U.N. school in Jebaliya, where some 350 people had taken refuge, were outside the building. He did not say whether the artillery came from Israeli forces.
For additional coverage of the Gaza school incidents, see my separate post here.
UPDATE: I'd been wondering when we'd hear from Zawahiri. Well, here he goes...
We will never stop until we avenge the death of all who are killed, injured, widowed and orphaned in Palestine and throughout the Islamic world," said Ayman al-Zawahiri in a new 10-minute audio recording released today on extreme Islamist Web forums.
The message is entitled "The Massacre in Gaza and the Siege of the Traitors".
Zawahiri refers directly to President-elect Barack Obama saying he has partnered with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom Zawahiri labels as a traitor to Islam.
So, let's see - Zawahiri still considers the US as the enemy, and that Obama isn't going to be treated any different than President Bush.
The mention of Mubarak makes sense, since Mubarak imprisoned Zawahiri and Zawahiri led the Muslim Brotherhood there before joining up and forming al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda's number two thug, Ayman al Zawahiri has issued a statement insulting President Elect Barack Obama weeks before he is to become President of the United States. Depending on the translation used, Zawahiri calls Obama either a house Negro or a house slave.
The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites, that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.
In al-Qaida's first response to Obama's victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect—along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice—"house negroes."
Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house negroes."
The message has multiple purposes. Two come to mind.
Zawahiri is egging Obama on just to see if Obama will hit al Qaeda.
Zawahiri has sprung a trap on Obama. If Obama orders strikes, Zawahiri can claim that (1) it's because Obama's a stooge for others; (2) he's vain and can't take being belittled; (3) combination of 1 and 2.
If Obama doesn't continue to respond to al Qaeda with force, Zawahiri sees just how weak Obama is and how a lack of resolve can be exploited in future attacks against US strategic interests worldwide.
In other words, this is a trial balloon to see how Obama will respond.
The message is also meant to appeal to the far left anti-America fringe to attempt to show that the US will not measurably change its foreign policy now that Obama will be assuming the Presidency. It's meant to undermine Obama's possible foreign policy strategies, especially if any of them are a continuation of the Bush and Clinton years.
UPDATE: The Jawa Report has the video and transcript of Zawahiri's latest outburst. Of particular note is the passage that calls out Obama for claiming that the US lost in Iraq. Obama indeed hoped for failure in Iraq, but circumstances have turned out to be quite different as the US is drawing down troops there because we've won.
Stop the ACLU has reaction from the right, which attacks Zawahiri for making the asinine statement. Zawahiri also insults the likes of Colin Powell and Condi Rice with the same "house slave" nonsense, which is cribbed from none other than Harry Belafonte.
The message was aired on Pakistan's ARY television network, IntelCenter said in a statement, adding that it marked "the first official message ever ... in which he speaks English."
Zawahiri "calls for the people to support jihad in Pakistan and lists a litany of grievances against the Pakistani government and US involvement there," said IntelCenter, which monitors extremist websites and communications.
In particular, Zawahiri accuses Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf of corruption, arguing that he is only working to support US and Western interests and that he has committed crimes against Muslims all over the world.
Zawahiri also describes Abdul Qadeer Khan -- the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb under house arrest for transferring nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea -- as a "scapegoat to appease the Americans."
"Let there be no doubt in your minds that the dominant political forces at work in Pakistan today are competing to appease and please the modern day Crusaders in the White House, and are working to destabilize this nuclear capable nation under the aegis of America," Zawahiri was quoted as saying by IntelCenter.
The Al-Qaeda chief "also relates his own personal experiences having lived in Pakistan in an apparent attempt to build a stronger connection with the Pakistani people."
The Egyptian-born Zawahiri says he picked English because he "wants to speaks directly to the Pakistani people and chose English because he cannot speak Urdu."
From this report, it would appear that he's trying to convince Pakistani Islamists to come over to his cause and undermine the Pakistani government, which has alternated between appeasement and crackdown under Pervez Musharraf. It's curious that he hasn't spoken English before, knowing that the Americans would be scrutinizing every word. Instead, he's waited until now to speak not to an American audience, but a Pakistani one.
That's telling. Things must not be going well in Pakistan or anywhere else for al Qaeda in order for him to start talking to prospective Islamists in English. He's run out of things to say in his native tongue and isn't getting sufficient numbers of jihadis to join, so they're having to find new avenues.
CBS News is reporting that their sources indicate that Aywan Zawahiri is in seriously bad shape and the misanthropic doctor is in need of medical attention himself after suffering some form of injury:
Ayman al-Zawahiri - the second most powerful leader in al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden's No. 2 - may be critically wounded and possibly dead, CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports exclusively.
CBS News has obtained a copy of an intercepted letter from sources in Pakistan, which urgently requests a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. He's believed to be somewhere in Pakistan's remote tribal areas of Pakistan.
The letter refers to Sheikh Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri by name - and says that he is in "severe pain" and his "injuries are infected."
Critically wounded is good news. Dead would be even better.
UPDATE: Bill Roggio at Long War Journal is skeptical of any sources within the Pakistani government claiming that Zawahiri is dead or seriously injured and this may be a misdirection play on their part:
Without official US confirmation of Zawahiri's death or his being severely wounded, all reports originating from Pakistani intelligence sources should be treated as suspect. The Pakistani military and intelligence agencies have made a nearly identical false report on the death of senior al Qaeda leaders. The reports come as Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani was conducting a visit to the United states and Pakistan's military and primary intelligence agency have come under fire for supporting extremists. Also, al Qaeda has been silent on the issue of the reports.
As far as al Qaeda's media output, given that we haven't exactly heard from Adam Gadahn lately, it's possible that those responsible for putting out the formerly high quality videos are no longer capable of doing so or that the supply chain had been broken such that it takes longer for the videos from al Qaeda's leadership to find their way into the open.
UPDATE: The terrorists have tried misdirection in the past, and may again be trying to do so because of recent successes.
Then again, it could be legitimate - but unless we get confirmation from US sources, I'd take with a grain of salt. The 48 hour rule should be in effect.
UPDATE: Reuters reports that they've heard from the Taliban and that they insist that Zawahiri is still alive. I say let the US cure what ails Zawahiri - his ability to breathe and lead al Qaeda.
It's not necessarily in that order, but bad news nonetheless. Al Qaeda continues losing ground, and even the Guardian is forced to admit that al Qaeda is losing its war against the West and the US in particular. Of course, they have to find an expert who claims that if the next US president follows the Bush Administration operational plans and continues the fight against al Qaeda, that all these gains will be lost. That appears farcical on its face considering that the Bush strategy has decimated al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, US and Afghan forces are busy fighting the Taliban along the Afghan/Pakistani border which has resulted in casualties, though reports suggest that it may involve Pakistani troops among those killed.
Speaking of Zawahiri, there are rumors suggesting that Ayman al Zawahiri was the focus of the Predator airstrike reported in Pakistan today, though all that appears clear is that we hit some kind of high value target. This is the fifth known strike in recent months. Those airstrikes resulted in killing Abu Laith al Libi in January and Abu Sulayman Jazairi, a senior Algerian operative for al Qaeda’s central organization, along with 13 associates, were killed in a May airstrike. It's been suggested at Adam Gadahn (aka Adam the Traitor) was killed in the May airstrike as well.
There's no news to suggest that Zawahiri bought the farm, though it would certainly be good news for the US efforts to decimate al Qaeda leadership and reduce their capabilities drastically.
AJ Strata thinks that we got him and notes that some reports indicate that the Pakistani forces killed were fighting alongside the Taliban forces engaged in fighting the US and Afghan troops. Given the precarious nature of Pakistan's control over the frontier provinces, that is quite plausible.
When all else fails (and it certainly has in Iraq and Afghanistan), al Qaeda's Zawahiri calls on its thugs and minions to to go back to basics.
He wants them to step up and try to break the blockade of Gaza and essentially calls on his terror minions to go after Egypt and Israel. Gaza is in the hands of the terrorist group Hamas, and Israel and Egypt are both imposing a blockade on the terrorists to try and prevent them from smuggling weapons into Gaza for use in Hamas' ongoing war against Israel.
Let's not forget that Zawahiri is Egyptian and he cut his teeth in opposing Egypt's peace overtures with Israel and sought to overthrow the Egyptian government. He led the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which merged into al Qaeda. This is a subject on which he's quite familiar.
Throw in old whipping boy Sen. John F. Kerry for his nonsensical comments, and even more nonsensical clarification:
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) believes that on September 11 "we were basically at peace."
Asked to clarify his remarks, specifically asking about the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole during Barack Obama campaign conference call, Kerry said, "well, we hadn't declared war," The Hill's Sam Youngman reports.
Asked if al Qaeda was a threat at the time, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee said, "well yes, obviously they were a threat. But, fundamentally we were not at war at that point in time."
Kerry also called John McCain "out of step with history and facts."
Senator Kerry, would that be before 8:43AM ET? Or after the first plane slammed into the WTC?
Maybe an hour earlier when those planes were being boarded by the 19 hijackers?
The sad fact is that al Qaeda declared war on the US well before the USS Cole or 9/11, and were already killing Americans around the world and attacking US interests. Fatwas issued by al Qaeda spelled out their goals, and sought to defeat the US and its interests around the world.
For example, the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people. There was the 1996 Khobar Tower bombings, which killed several dozen Americans.
On 9/11, the war launched by al Qaeda was driven home in the most gruesome and violent manner - attacking the US and its financial and military centers - the Pentagon and WTC.
That the US failed to respond to this war well before 9/11 is the fault of those in power to that point. That includes President Clinton who was Commander in Chief as the Cole was bombed, the embassies bombed, and even the first WTC bombing, which was carried out by the forerunners and kindred spirits to al Qaeda's Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, as well as President Bush, who came into office just months before the attacks and was still in the process of figuring out the extent of the threat and what to do about it.
The Clinton Administration clearly didn't understand the nature of the threat, and its ongoing response to terrorist activities was anything but a vigorous defense of US interests.
Now, we have Sen. Kerry issuing statements that only continue to show just how out of touch Congressional Democrats are to the threats facing the country - past, present and future, as Kerry is a major supporter of the Obama campaign and would be seen as a player in any such administration.
Terrorists arguing with rival terror masters whose conspiracy theorizing rivals that of the Troofer movement. Welcome to the wonderful world of jihad in the 21st century.
Osama bin Laden's chief deputy on Tuesday denied a theory that Israel carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and blamed Iran and Shiite Hezbollah for spreading the idea to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida's strike against the U.S.
The comments in a recording posted on an Islamic Web site reflected the increasing criticism by al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri against Iran. Al-Zawahri has accused Iran in recent messages of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.
The authenticity of the two-hour audio recording could not be independently confirmed. But the voice sounded like past audiotapes from the terror leader, and the posting where it was found bore the logo of Al-Sahab, al-Qaida's official media arm.
It was the second of two messages answering questions that were posted to Islamic militant Web sites earlier this year.
One of the questioners asked about the theory that has circulated in the Middle East and elsewhere that Israel was behind the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Al-Zawahri accused Hezbollah's Al-Manar television of starting the rumor.
So, it's Hizbullah's fault that we've got conspiracy theories about who was behind 9/11? Sorry, but I'm not buying that either. After all, we've got a whole bunch of loony leftists here in the US that think that the Bush Administration was behind the attacks, and you've got French "film makers" who claim to have proof that the US attacked its own buildings and killed thousands of its own people on 9/11. A whole cottage industry has been spawned in the US where people believe that the US government was behind the attacks.
The new US embassy in Baghdad is finally ready to open, and MSNBC calls it fortress America. It definitely isn't an inviting structure, but that's done on purpose as rules were drawn up after the embassy bombings to make their facilities more secure against various kinds of attacks.
The aesthetic principles are secondary to security measures with good reason. The US embassies are targets that the likes of al Qaeda have attacked in the past and may well attempt again in the future.
And Zawahiri has emerged from his cave to once again declare that the US has lost Iraq and that Iraq is the most important battleground.
Well, he's batting .500.
He's wrong about the US losing Iraq - the only ones losing are al Qaeda and their fellow jihadis who can't get rid of US forces and who have seen the local population turn against the jihadis precisely because of suicide bombings and violence against fellow Muslims.
He is right that Iraq is the central battlefield - because if al Qaeda can't win there, they can't win anywhere.
It's because of this that the spike in suicide bombings, a possible attempt to recreate Tet, will fail, not because of media coverage which generally spikes as the violence does, but because the locals have seen what the jihadis have done and will not tolerate the violence any longer. This may also be the death throes of the jihadis in Iraq - where the remnants are pushed to desperate measures to maintain any relevance at all.
The spike in suicide bombings also appears to show that Zawahiri isn't exactly able to provide leadership over the Iraqi al Qaeda contingent because it wasn't long ago that Zawahiri said that the suicide bombing missions were becoming counterproductive, which is evident because the Sunni Awakening would not have happened if al Qaeda had not started attacking Sunnis who were formerly open to the idea of working with al Qaeda for not being sufficiently Islamist enough.
Meanwhile, Rusty at the Jawa Report notes that there were actually two wars in Iraq. The first was the one to topple the evil regime of Saddam Hussein. That one has long been over. The second is the one that is currently being fought against the jihadis and al Qaeda. Whatever the merits of the first to attack, and I still believe they were more than sufficient on human rights grounds alone (the mass graves, ethnic cleansing and genocide more than sufficient to warrant action), it is indisputable that we cannot leave Iraq now to the hands of al Qaeda and their coreligionist terrorists.
Most Americans would agree that al Qaeda is the primary enemy facing the US around the world, so ceding the field of battle in places like Iraq or Afghanistan would be catastrophic for US national security, regional stability and disastrous for the Iraqis and Afghan people.
Yes folks, all those photos of people jumping to their death deserved their fates. The mass carnage of 9/11. Every single terrorist attack perpetrated by al Qaeda. Whether ti was the bombings of embassies, the USS Cole, or the thousands of attacks in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
By Zawahiri's way of thinking, they got what was coming to them, as has every single person slaughtered by al Qaeda before and since then. Nearly 3,000 people snuffed out in an instant because they were carrying out jihad. Billions of dollars of damage inflicted on the US and world economy, and the costs are still being tallied as I write.
No one is an innocent - and this is their way of trying to rationalize the mass slaughter perpetrated by al Qaeda thugs around the world - that they are not innocent civilians, but rather an enemy that is fair game for their jihad against the West.
Zawahiri flips around the argument of human shields:
Al-Zawahiri, who led an Egyptian Islamic militant group that joined forces with bin Laden in the 1990s, said innocents who have been killed in attacks by al Qaeda or affiliated groups died as a result of "unintentional error" or because they were used as "human shields" by "the enemy."
Governments worldwide have blamed al Qaeda for attacks that have killed several thousand people, including about 3,000 who died in the attacks on Washington and New York on September 11, 2001.
Al-Zawahiri defended a December attack in Algeria -- hospital sources said it killed 60 people -- because one of its targets was a United Nations building and the "United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims," according to the transcript.
Yes, that's right folks, the people working at the WTC, those rescue workers, and everyone else murdered by al Qaeda at the WTC, were human shields used by the government. I'm sure that argument will go over well with the Troofer movement. Zawahiri also has time to mention that Osama bin Laden is still well, though he hasn't been actually seen in a video in years:
He said "bin Laden is healthy and well," the transcript said, but that even if he "doesn't become ill, he must die one day."
Well, that certainly clears things up, doesn't it [ed: that's sarcasm folks].
UPDATE: Meryl Yourish points out something that got buried in its coverage of Zawahiri's latest rantings - that he again calls for the genocide of all Jews. She also points to the original transcript - without the bowdlerization by the media outlets.
Al Qaeda has released yet another video, this time Ayman al-Zawahiri appears, and he's appealing for Gaza to rise up against Israel and destroy Israel, and attack Jewish and American interests around the world. I wonder if Zawahiri has been paying attention to what's happened each and every time Hamas and the other jihadis have attempted mass casualty attacks - they've been hunted down like rabid dogs and eliminated by Israel's security forces.
Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims in a new audiotape released Monday to strike Jewish and American targets in revenge for Israel's recent offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The al-Zawahri tape came on the heels of a message from Osama bin Laden, who called for a holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories. Together, the two messages appeared to be a more direct push by the terror network's leadership to use widespread anger over the Gaza violence to whip up support.
Israel's weeklong offensive in Gaza ended in early March. It was launched in an attempt to put down Palestinian militants firing rockets against nearby the Israeli town of Sderot and city of Ashkelon. The Israeli assault killed more than 120 people, including many civilians. Three Israelis also were killed.
Bin Laden and al-Zawahri have frequently referred to the Palestinian cause in their past messages, but usually in broader terms of liberating Jerusalem and denouncing Israeli violence. Their latest calls for attacks, however, had a more immediate and urgent tone.
The string of messages has raised concerns that al-Qaida could be planning new attacks in the West — or is seeking to inspire its sympathizers to carry out violence. In another message last week, bin Laden warned of a "severe" reaction against Europe after Danish papers published a cartoon seen as insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
The AP makes no attempt to actually quantify how many terrorists were killed, and I'd suggest that the number of terrorists eliminated by Israel was far greater than the number of Palestinian civilians killed. It's yet another sign of AP bias against Israel. It also ignores the fact that Israel has been bombarded by literally thousands of kassam rockets and mortars since 2005, when Israel disengaged and left Gaza to its own devices. Gaza is wholly in Hamas's hands, and had Hamas intended to build a useful and productive society, it could have done so.
It instead engaged in a war against Israel, using the Palestinian population as human shields to carry out attacks against Israel and to use the civilians injured and killed as propaganda tools to bludgeon Israel in the media war since they aren't successful in the military arena.
The video is also notable because Zawahiri is essentially admitting there are few places in the world where al Qaeda and other jihadi groups have safe havens from which to launch operations and relying upon the old standby of the Palestinians is about all that they have left. He also attacked Egypt in the tape, for what he claimed was collusion with Israel for shutting the border with Gaza.
The Egyptian-born Al-Zawahri accused Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of colluding with Israel in the siege of Gaza. Egypt has sealed its border with the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian militant group Hamas took over the territory last year.
He said Mubarak "repeats the same dirty role" as the Lebanese Phalangists — a Christian militia that was allied with Israel in Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and was blamed in the massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Beirut camps of Sabra and Shatila.
"The roles are the same, even if the faces change — the same betrayal even if the names have changed," said al-Zawahri.
Zawahiri and Egypt have a long history, as Zawahiri was a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad before becoming al Qaeda's number two thug. Expect the Muslim Brotherhood to take up Zawahiri's call in Egypt and engage in more terrorism there, particularly in the Sinai or at key tourist locations, as had been done in the past.
Elsewhere, Hizbullah is going to be holding rallies in Lebanon to mark the 40th day since Imad Mughniyeh, aka Mugh the Thug, was dispatched in a car bombing. Israel's security forces are on alert as a result.
Abbas has said repeatedly that he would not negotiate a new power-sharing deal with Hamas unless it first steps aside in Gaza. Despite Hamas' refusal to do so, Abbas sent a representative, former Deputy Palestinian Prime Minister Azzam al-Ahmed, to Yemen to explore the reconciliation proposal - apparently to avoid being seen as inflexible on trying to mend the deep internal Palestinian rift.
On Sunday, al-Ahmed and a senior Hamas representative, Moussa Abu Marzouk, signed a declaration that both accept a Yemeni initiative calling for the creation of a national unity government and the rebuilding of security forces loyal to that government instead of factions.
Of course, Israel says that any deal with the Palestinian Authority depends on whether the PA fights terrorism or not. Well, given that Hamas and Fatah are both terrorist groups and Fatah and Hamas are in talks to re-form the Authority, I'd suggest that there's no chance for peace. You might get occasional truces, but they're nothing more than a hudna - the strategic pause enabling the terrorists to prepare for a coming war with Israel.
Given how the terror threat hasn't diminished, it's way too soon to consider dismantling checkpoints in the West Bank.
Barry Rubin has a good op-ed, which mirrors many of my own writings - namely that the Palestinian terror groups all continually misread the situation. They think that Israel's reluctance to use force is a sign of weakness, and that they overestimate their capabilities (though one should never overestimate their capacity to slaughter innocents).
Where's al Qaeda's Ayman al Zawahiri? He's been targeted by airstrikes in the past, including one where he managed to slip away only minutes before the attack. It's not the first time that he was targeted, and it surely will not be the last.
It is rare - almost never - when US forces get to count the dead enemy and take toll of who precisely has been attacking them. "I interact on a daily basis with an enemy that has both local and foreign elements," says Captain Loius Frketic, who commands a battalion known as the "Able Main Warlords" in Kunar province's Pech Valley. He is sure they are foreigners because he can hear Arab voices on the radio communications he intercepts. "But just what the foreign element is bringing to the fight, I don't exactly know."
Al-Qaeda's senior leadership was last targeted - two years ago - only 32 kilometers from his base in the neighboring Bajaur district of Pakistan. A few hours before that attack, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, is believed to have slipped away. Until four years ago, US intelligence experts believed that bin Laden himself was traveling in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province in the company of Zawahiri. Though the formerly inseparable pair is believed to have split up - likely out of security concerns - their paths may well still cross - at least for secret meetings.
In such meetings, senior al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan often review videotapes of the fighting in Afghanistan taken by surrogates and plan funding for future operations.
For fighters in the 173rd Combat Team fighting in eastern Afghanistan north of the Khyber Pass, just knowing that they fight in proximity to the masterminds of the September 11, 2001, attacks highlights their own sense of a great divide: a split between what the US forces can and must do in Afghanistan, and what al-Qaeda is planning across the border in Pakistan.
Platoon leaders in regular clashes with insurgents here say that their foe is under the direct sway of al-Qaeda. "When we are in a village, we always know that al-Qaeda and the Taliban will soon be back to try to undercut us and try to one-up us," said Sergeant Mark Patterson, whose platoon in the Korengal Valley has been in some of the heaviest fighting anywhere in Afghanistan. US forces based out of the "KOP", or Korengal Outpost, face a higher concentration of al-Qaeda-backed insurgents than most regions of Afghanistan, not least because an Egyptian lieutenant of al-Qaeda operates among them, say US officers.
While US forces rarely see their enemy, their mission is to fight for the hearts and minds of the same people al-Qaeda and its affiliates try to win over. While the insurgents try to operate with the cover of the what Chinese leader Mao Zedong once called the "sea of the people", US forces are trying to pry away that popular backing.
It's a strategy that has worked with some success in Iraq, and could work in Afghanistan and along the Afghan-Pakistani border, especially as the jihadis inflict a terrible toll through bombings and attacks on those who might otherwise be amenable to harboring the Taliban out of tribal loyalties and the custom of giving shelter to visitors.
UPDATE: We might not know where Zawahiri is, but the disembodied voice of Osama has been spotted on a video tape (well, there's just audio from bin Laden, which has become his modus operandi on these tapes). No mention of the five year anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and it refers instead to the cartoon jihad in Europe. Curious. Very curious.
Rusty at the Jawa Report thinks that this is proof that Osama's dead because the cartoon jihad started two years ago, and there's nothing really new on point - and the lack of mention of Geert Wilders film despite its pending release suggests that Osama's seriously behind the times. He posits that the audio is from at least 2006 and the terror video producers at al Sahab didn't have anything else close to work with, so this is what we've got.
You might have caught a news report or two earlier in the week that the Pentagon released a report finding no operational links between Iraq and al Qaeda (that is, when it wasn't being buried by the Spitzer mess).
Well, it figures that the media got the reporting wrong. The actual report provides a slightly different take on that. Let's call it a nuanced media report, because while no smoking gun of active Iraqi officials working in tandem with al Qaeda, there was plenty of other funny business going on.
Indeed, Iraq was a nexus of funding international terror groups including a couple you might not immediately recognize, but you might recognize the name of the jihadis who spewed forth from them. From page 67 of the report:
Saddam's interest in, and support for, non-Iraqi non-state actors was spread across a wide variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. For years, Saddam maintained training camps for foreign "fighters" drawn from these diverse groups. In some cases, particularly for Palestinians, Saddam was also a strong financial supporter. Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives. 97
No links to al Qaeda? There's also this from the footnotes:
Many of the early members of al Qaeda were Egyptian extremist veterans of alJihad (Egyptian Islamic Jihad), including the organization's "number two" man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Palestine Liberation Front, Renewal and Jihad (Hamas), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) are all listed as designated foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department. (www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37l9l.htm)
Well, he was busy funding all the ancillary terror groups that spawned jihadis that made up al Qaeda. Saddam was lubricating the terror business by funding terror groups across the region, and included groups that were and are aligned with al Qaeda.
That's a wee bit different than those earlier media reports saying no links. Saddam might not have controlled al Qaeda, but he certainly had no problem financing the groups that spawned al Qaeda and its leaders, not to mention other international terrorist groups that are on the State Department terror lists.
Also taking a closer look at what the report actually says: Weekly Standard.
UPDATE: Gateway Pundit fires away at the media and then fires for effect, providing photographic and other evidence showing that Iraq was up to its eyeballs in links with terrorists including al Qaeda, and the media's claims otherwise are laughable.
The acting director of a Baghdad psychiatric hospital has been arrested on suspicion of supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq with the mentally impaired women that it used to blow up two crowded animal markets in the city on February 1, killing about 100 people.
Iraqi security forces and US soldiers arrested the man at al-Rashad hospital in east Baghdad on Sunday. They then spent three hours searching his office and removing records. Sources told The Times that the two women bombers had been treated at the hospital in the past.
“They [the security forces] arrested the acting director, accusing him of working with al-Qaeda and recruiting mentally ill women and using them in suicide bombing operations,” a hospital official said.
This doctor, who is supposed to be caring for people and making them well, saw the Down's syndrome women as perfectly suitable for bombing missions for al Qaeda because they possessed the perfect traits for such a mission.
They lacked the capacity to understand what they were supposed to do and what was to happen to them, and that security wouldn't think to consider them a threat since they were women.
While much of the media loves to follow the meme that jihadis and terrorists in general are poor thugs who simply lack economic opportunity, the fact is that the terrorist leadership is among the more educated classes in the Middle East - they're doctors, engineers, and professionals. Indeed, many of the most heinous Islamic terrorists are doctors, including Zawahiri of al Qaeda, Hamas has Zahar (and had Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi), among others.
The bombings in the UK last year were tied to a group of Muslim doctors.
There are ongoing concerns that doctors may attempt to murder people by purposefully injecting dangerous substances or even air into patients so as to cause strokes or death.
It shouldn't be surprising that doctors are among the jihadis, but it is unsettling nonetheless because of their creed to do no harm and to preserve life.
