Al Qaeda losing in the Philippines too

Bill Gertz:

U.S. special operations forces in the Pacific have made significant progress in the past year battling the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Philippines.

"Abu Sayyaf ... has been mitigated very successfully by the government of the Philippines and their security forces," said a senior officer of the Special Operations Command-Pacific, known as SOC-PAC, which is supporting operations against the Islamist group.

"In the past year, several of their key leaders have been killed."

The officer said during a background briefing in Honolulu, where the SOC-PAC has its headquarters, that the remaining Abu Sayyaf members are divided and fighting among themselves over who will replace leaders who have been killed.

Additionally, electronic "chatter" picked up from the group about plans for attacks against Filipino and U.S. targets revealed that "it's just that, chatter," the officer said, noting that in the past such chatter has led to actual attacks.

"So their ability to turn chatter into action has been substantially mitigated in the past year," the officer said.

The officer would not say that the group has been defeated, but another sign of its growing weakness as an Islamist terrorist force is that many members of Abu Sayyaf are turning themselves in to Philippines authorities.

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There is more including progress reports in Indonesia and other Asian countries in the fight against al Qaeda. The al Qaeda brand is in serious retreat everywhere with the possible exception of its home base in the Pakistan tribal areas. There is where the final battle will probably be waged. With Musharraf's declaration of martial law we will have to see if Pakistan will finally seriously fight the al Qaeda miscreants.