| Submit your comments on this article |
| Terror Networks |
| Bin Laden's new butchers |
| 2004-09-20 |
| By Martin Chulov, Tel Aviv September 20th, 2004 AL-QA'IDA'S new torchbearers are on the march. The next generation of Islamist leaders is more determined, more ruthless and far more dangerous than its predecessors. And the world is just getting to know them. The chilling prophecy was delivered last week by a panel of the world's leading counter-terrorist experts, who have, since the events of 9/11, watched al-Qa'ida shift like sand dunes in a desert storm. "What they have in store for us is probably more than any of us could bear," one security official told a closed session of the Terrorism's Global Impact summit in Tel Aviv. The al-Qa'ida brand now extends far beyond its ubiquitous leader Osama bin Laden. The five men who carry on his ideology feel emboldened enough to make revolutionary calls of their own. First among them is Ayman el Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy and doctor, and the man who has for the past two years called most of al-Qa'ida's operational shots. Zawahiri has taken up the slack left by the arrest of a swath of mid-level organisers, in particular the group's operational chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was nabbed in Pakistan 18 months ago. It was Zawahiri's face that the world saw on television screens last week, days before the third anniversary of 9/11. And, providing he eludes capture, it will be Zawahiri we will continue to witness publicly trumpeting the aftermath of future strikes. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #2 Sorry, but the "front" described herein is a problem mainly for the peoples of the middle east, not the United States. This article is suggesting only that the hornets have been diverted from Afghanistan and Chechnya toward Iraq and Saudi. Of course Iran is a major problem for the US, but Zarqawi and the other little jihadists are not. The crucial decisions to be made are not those by the US-- we could leave Iraq within a year (or withdraw our troops into a pro-US Kurdish Republic) if we wished and not be the worse off for it-- but by the fence-straddlers, such as Russia, the House of Saud, and Turkey and India. The goal is to get those nations' leaders firmly on our side and to have them step up in combatting the fire in their backyard. It's largely their problem, not ours. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-20 4:19:28 PM |
| #1 It's the article so nice, you have to read it twice! |
| Posted by: Gromky 2004-09-20 4:00:47 PM |