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Al-Qaeda resilient terrorist threat to US: report
[Al Arabiya Latest] Al-Qaeda's core leadership in Pakistan remains the most formidable terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland and al-Qaeda's growing presence across Africa challenges many states, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.Terrorist attacks worldwide and their death toll in 2009 were at their lowest levels in some four years, according to the U.S. State Department's annual "Country Reports on Terrorism" publication. Terrorists carried out 10,999 attacks worldwide in 2009, killing 14,971, it said. Al-Qaeda, the group behind the Sept 11. attacks, "has proven to be an adaptable and resilient terrorist group whose desire to attack the United States and U.S. interests abroad remains strong," it said. Afghanistan's Taliban-led insurgency, which got funding and training from al-Qaeda, "remained resilient in the south and east and expanded its presence into the north and west" and retained an undiminished ability to recruit Pashtun foot soldiers, it said. However, the report said al-Qaeda suffered "several significant setbacks" in 2009, although its threat to Americans is more dispersed. It said the group faced a Pakistani military onslaught, has lost many of its leaders, and has found it "tougher to raise money, train recruits and plan attacks" outside the Pakistan and Afghanistan region. "In addition to these operational setbacks, al-Qaeda continued to fail in its efforts to carry out the attacks that would shake governments in the Muslim world," said the report. "Yet despite these setbacks, the al-Qaeda threat was more dispersed than in recent years, which partially offset the losses suffered by al-Qaeda's core," the report said. Posted by: Fred 2010-08-06 |
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