The al Qaeda nodal network

Austin Bay:

Last Sunday, terrorist chieftain Abu Musad al-Zarqawi openly declared his allegiance to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. His website manifesto added that his "One God and Jihad" Islamist terror faction agreed with Al Qaeda's global strategy and recognized the need to unite against "the enemies of Islam." The online rant referred to bin Laden as "the sheik of holy warriors."

Zarqawi (nicknamed "Z-Man" by coalition troops in Iraq) craves TV time and newspaper headlines, and he got both by stating the obvious.

Zarqawi is Al Qaeda's man in Iraq, and -- despite blaring headlines -- this connection is very old news.

It isn't that Osama bin Laden (if he's still alive) directs Zarqawi's operations. He doesn't. There may be personal frictions between Zarqawi and senior Al Qaeda leaders; Zarqawi's and bin Laden's egos won't fit in the same room.

However, Al Qaeda works as a loose, "nodal network," where each associated faction operates with local and regional autonomy. Factions do cooperate strategically. Early last year, Kurdish militiamen snagged a compact disc containing Zarqawi's strategic assessment of his operations in Iraq. U.S. and coalition intelligence determined the CD was on its way to "Central Asia" (Pakistan or Afghanistan, most likely).

Zarqawi's intercepted message to his Al Qaeda comrades admitted that his terror band was "failing to enlist support" inside Iraq and was "unable to scare the Americans into leaving."

...

Zarqawi lacks political support and is increasingly desperate. His declaration of solidarity with Al Qaeda is both an emergency plea for Islamist reinforcements from Syria and Saudi Arabia, and the shrill cry of a true believer just rational enough to recognize he's caught in a political and military vise.

Since April 2004, the Sunni Triangle city of Falluja has been an outlaw town where Zarqawi's fanatics mixed with Saddmite insurgents and criminal gangs. Falluja has served as their safe haven and headquarters. Ironically, Falluja has showcased the poverty and violence produced by fascist thugs and theocrats.

Iraq's adept Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is performing a political judo act on Sunni holdouts, with Zarqawi as the fall guy.

Press sources report residents of Falluja and other cities have been providing highly reliable information about "foreign fighters," and coalition airstrikes and special operations attacks have killed scores of Zarqawi recruits.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more