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Al Qaeda is back
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Don't call it a comeback. Al Qaeda, the group responsible for the worst terrorist attack in United States history, never really left. Instead, while news media coverage inordinately focused on the Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... , al Qaeda re-tooled and re-established itself for a new age. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of al Qaeda's death were greatly exaggerated. Anticipatory obituaries appeared after the death of al Qaeda founder the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... on May 2, 2011. Then-President Barack Obama ...I am not a dictator! , for instance, said on Sept. 10, 2011 that al Qaeda was "on a path to defeat." Similarly, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... said in July 2011 that the U.S. was "within reach of strategically defeating al Qaeda." The rise of the Islamic State -- an al Qaeda branch itself until an official split in 2014 cemented a long-standing rivalry -- received considerable attention from news hounds, pundits, and policymakers, as well as the public they influence. But as terror analysts Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Bridget Moreng pointed out in an April 2015 op-ed, "The Islamic State's offensive through Iraq and Syria last year has dominated the headlines, but the jihadist group that has won the most territory in the Arab world over the past six months is Al Qaeda." The two analysts cited the Islamic State's comparatively greater emphasis on media and more highly-developed media capabilities as part of the reason. This difference however, has worked to al Qaeda's benefit. The terror group, led since 2011 by bin Laden-successor Ayman al-  Zawahiri... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra... , has employed a less flashy strategy that stands in contrast to its competitor's use of gruesome, and accordingly well-publicized, atrocities. Nor has al Qaeda, for the most part, attempted to hold and govern wide swaths of territory. The Islamic State's decision to do so and to declare a caliphate under His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... resulted in its split from al Qaeda. By adopting a more covert approach, al Qaeda has been able to expand while flying under the radar as the West and its Arab government allies have focused on the Islamic State. Ironically, al Qaeda has taken a page from the counterinsurgency strategy employed as part of the "surge" in Iraq to defeat it. By embedding with local populations, selling itself as less of a threat than the Islamic State, and relinquishing the scorched-earth tactics it had once employed as al Qaeda in Iraq, Zawihiri has led his organization to steady gains. Posted by: Fred 2017-02-06 |
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