Hard times for al Qaeda

Strategy Page:

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The last year has been pretty dreadful for al Qaeda. In the last two months, for example, major cells were shut down in Malaysia, Canada, Egypt, Britain and the United States. On June 7th, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was killed, and many of his key records captured. That led to the death or capture of nearly a thousand al Qaeda members in Iraq, including several more of the "Ten Most Wanted."

It gets worse. Saudi Arabia, where most of the manpower, and money, came from to start al Qaeda, declared the terrorist organization dead within the kingdom. That may be unduly optimistic, since on June 23rd, a policemen was killed during an attempt to arrest six terrorists planning attacks on Saudi oil facilities. The six fought to the death instead. But there hasn't been an al Qaeda attack in the kingdom since last February, and no successful attacks in over a year.

In the last year there have been no al Qaeda attacks in Western Europe or North America. There is still a lot of al Qaeda bloodshed in Iraq, but this has backfired. Killing lots of Moslems, even if most of them are "heretical" (to al Qaeda) Shia, only turns the Islamic world against you. For most Iraqis, al Qaeda is a hated organization.

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It is strange that much of the media does not recognize this. All of this analysis comes from the public record. But much of the media efforts in the last six months have been aimed at undercutting these victories and making political points for an ideology that wants to lose the war in Iraq and make it more difficult to fight elsewhere. History should not be kind to these people. In the short term their allies in the left wing academic circles may cover for them but eventually the truth will get out.