Al Qaeda lost its central front and must change focus
When liberal Brit papers are printing opinion pieces on the decline of al Qaeda, the idea has reached critical mass, even if Obama and the Democrats have not been sufficiently wise enough to recognize the obvious.Last month an Arabic satellite TV channel broadcast a chilling video of a group of Iraqi teenagers called the "Youths of Heaven" - their faces masked and brandishing Kalashnikov rifles, chanting "Allahu Akbar" and vowing to blow themselves up with "crusaders and apostates." The film of these aspiring suicide bombers, all said to be under 16, was produced by al-Furqan, the media arm of the Islamic State of Iraq, aka al-Qaida. But such material is rare these days, with film coming out of Iraq looking suspiciously like posed training sessions with little of the live action of ambushes that has been the staple fare of jihadi websites.
Two weeks ago, General Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA, made waves when he said in an interview that al-Qaida has suffered "near-strategic defeat" in Iraq. To many observers it was a surprisingly upbeat view just a year after gloomy assessments of the dangers that Osama bin Laden still posed. In fact, few security sources - including key counter-terrorism officials canvassed by the Guardian - and independent experts disagree, though the US military is more circumspect.
Nor does anyone dispute the key fact that al-Qaida has also lost three senior commanders in its refuge in the Pakistani tribal areas (two to unmanned Predator drones) even if its "core leadership" of Bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and a couple of dozen other Egyptians and Libyans remains at large.
Evidence of al-Qaida's problems in Iraq is weighty and convincing. It has been badly hit by the fightback from the American-backed Sunni "Sons of Iraq" and the US troop "surge". Western intelligence agencies estimate that the number of foreign fighters is down to single figures each month. The border with Syria is now harder to cross.
Iraq-watchers point, too, to financial strain caused by the arrests of al-Qaida sympathisers in Saudi Arabia, mafia-like disputes over alcohol licences and difficulties recruiting the right calibre of people. Last month, a sympathetic website carried a study showing a 94% decline in operations over a year. The Islamic State of Iraq claimed 334 operations in November 2006 but just 25 a year later. Attacks dropped from 292 in May 2007 to 16 by mid-May this year.
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Al-Qaida is also perceived as being "on the back foot" because of attacks by Muslim clerics on its takfiri ideology and revulsion at the killing of innocent Muslims. Participants in Zawahiri's recent "open dialogue" on Islamist websites compared al-Qaida's performance unfavourably with the successes of Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon.
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Officials talk about the appeal of an "attractive area of ungoverned space". This is Somalia, described as an increasingly popular destination for "western jihadists", though al-Qaida is playing only a small part in the violence there, western intelligence officials suggest.
Of more immediate concern is north Africa. Algeria is a growth area a year after the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GPSC) renamed itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a move seen as flattering recognition of a uniquely successful global franchise. Five bombings in the last week alone have been troubling reminders that it is far from being defeated. Experts are divided about the link between local and wider factors but there is evidence of internet and telephone connections with the "core leadership" in Pakistan, with Zawahiri taking "a close interest."
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The Democrats are still in denial about their misjudgment on the effect of the surge. They were dead wrong about it and put themselves on the record sixty or so times. At some point they should have to pay a political price for being wrong whether they admit it or not.
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