Osama's deputy mocks America

[Talon]

TERROR LEADER TAUNTS US

Osama bin Laden's deputy has claimed the American-led occupation of Iraq is "head over heels".

Ayman al Zawahiri also said mujahedeen fighters had taken control of much of Afghanistan, limiting the movement of US troops.

The Egyptian surgeon wore a white turban and had a machine gun by his side in the tape, released two days before the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

In a tape broadcast by al Jazeera, Zawahiri predicted Coalition rule of Iraq would end in "defeat".

He warned: "In Islamic Iraq the mujahideen have turned America's plan head over heels.

"The American defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan has become just a question of time, God willing"

In the tape, the al Qaeda number two boasted about the work of Islamic fighters in Afghanistan.

He said: "Southern and eastern Afghanistan have completely become an open field for the mujahedeen.

"As for the Americans, they are now lying in their trenches, refusing to come out to meet the mujahedeen, despite the provocation of attacks, hits and carjacking."

Zawahiri's version of the power struggle in Afghanistan contrasts sharply to that given out by America.

No provincial government in the country is considered in jeopardy of falling and Afghan and US forces have largely controlled the country.

A spokesman for al Jazeera would not say how it obtained the tape, only that it was obtained "by various ways".

The last tape said to feature Zawahiri surfaced on June 11 and was broadcast by the al Arabiya station.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-13218326,00.html

[Stellar]

When was the last vid by Osama released? I havent heard from him in a while! *Hopes the october suprise is real!*

[Babs]

Zawahiri looks kind of emanciated, and that dude is getting old. He puts on a brave front. I remember when we overtook Iraq the Iraqis were giving out false information or disinformation about our progress.

[Michelle]

Remember the Defence Minister (Ithink that's who it was) on camera saying American troops were not in Bagdad and they were on the camera in the background?

[Talon]

Remember the Defence Minister (Ithink that's who it was) on camera saying American troops were not in Bagdad and they were on the camera in the background?

Well if anyone doesn't, you can buy it all on DVD

Edited September 10, 2004 by Talon S.

[Michelle]

Yeah, that's him! I remember now we called him the Misinformation Minister.

Drug use, from the past, has fried a few brain cells.

[Babs]

I'm thinking thats their strategy.

[Talon]

Analysis: Al-Qaeda three years on

Three years on from its most deadly attacks, al-Qaeda has evolved.

There is a tendency to see it as a monolithic foe directed by an all-powerful leader pulling the strings.

But analysts believe there is a danger in laying too much emphasis on al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden alone when the reality is more complex - and perhaps more dangerous.

There is no doubt that the core of al-Qaeda has been disrupted. It has lost its secure sanctuary and training camps in Afghanistan and is finding it harder to organise and communicate under pressure.

The core of hardened veterans has been hit hard in the past three years.

In his New York convention speech on 2 September, 2004, President Bush declared that American strategy was succeeding and that "more than three-quarters of al-Qaeda's key members and associates have been detained or killed".

Underestimated

But body counts are not necessarily the most useful way of judging progress because al-Qaeda is not a "normal" military entity and the war that the US is engaged in is not a "normal" military struggle.

Interpreting the removal of al-Qaeda's key operatives as a sign of "winning" risks misunderstanding both the aims of al-Qaeda and its nature as an organisation.

For instance, one key question is whether the organisation is recruiting new personnel faster than its current members are hunted down and whether its broader base of support is being eroded or is growing.

The focus on the core of al-Qaeda also ignores the extent to which the baton has largely passed from al-Qaeda's historic core to a broader, looser network of radical groups.

In some cases, existing insurgent groups have been radicalised through contacts with al-Qaeda and drawn into a wider network.

One example is Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia which has increasingly attacked international targets but is relatively independent of al-Qaeda.

Younger generation

Other local insurgencies which were sometimes nationalist or ethnic in character have been pulled into the broader rhetoric of the war on terrorism either because of groups themselves buying into the al-Qaeda discourse of an international struggle, or because governments cracking down on them have found it useful to cast their own struggles in that wider context.

Sometimes both occur - for instance the growing Islamisation, radicalisation and internationalisation of the Chechen conflict and Russia's efforts to emphasise this trend.

It is the local groups and affiliates, not the al-Qaeda core itself, which have undertaken most of the post 9/11 attacks.

The new, younger generation of militants may only have tenuous - if any - links to the al-Qaeda core.

The group who carried out the Madrid bombing in March 2004 were not people who had been selected, trained and were carrying out direct orders from Osama Bin Laden in the way the 9/11 hijackers had.

None of them appear to have been to Afghanistan.

Instead, they were inspired by al-Qaeda and its rhetoric and statements but seem to have operated as part of a relatively autonomous grouping of European cells.

And the more dispersed the network is - and the more it relies on local cells rather than people travelling into a country to commit an act - the harder it becomes to counter the threat because these independent actors can be harder to locate and keep track of.

Because they act so independently, getting rid of one cell does not end the problem, nor would capturing Bin Laden.

Inspirational leadership

In this more dispersed structure, Bin Laden himself becomes less important as a commander issuing specific instructions and more important as an ideologue and propagandist, setting broad strategic aims but leaving local groups to decide when and how to carry out attacks.

It seems increasingly as though supporters do not wait for orders from above to carry out attacks although this does not mean that the central al-Qaeda core is no longer planning any major attacks itself - it is probably devoting its energies to try to plan a new "spectacular" attack on the US.

The other reason why understanding al-Qaeda's evolution is so important is because the organisation's purpose has always been as much inspirational as operational.

Attacks are a means to an end for al-Qaeda rather than an end in themselves.

Al-Qaeda's central goal is to act as a base, a kind of revolutionary vanguard, drawing as many as Muslims as possible into a broader jihadist tide of radical Islam.

This movement, they believe, would then drive the Americans from Muslim lands and overthrow governments like those of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (which they see as propped up by the US) and lead the way for the unification of the umma - the Islamic community which would then follow what they see as a "pure" brand of Islam.

End game

In this broader aim, al-Qaeda has had some success.

In the battle for moderate Muslims, there is no doubt that many have been alienated from the US by its invasion of Iraq and support for Israel.

The virulent ideology of violent jihad looks to be spreading.

In this sense, many experts now talk about facing a global Islamist insurgency rather than a single organisation like al-Qaeda.

However, there has not been quite the depth or breadth of embrace of radicalism that Osama Bin Laden might have wanted, and no signs yet of the tidal wave of militant Islam sweeping the Muslim world and overthrowing governments as Bin Laden had clearly hoped.

Anti-Americanism may have grown but it has not necessarily translated easily into pro-Bin Ladenism.

And so, three years on from the 11 September attacks, neither side can convincingly claim victory.

Al-Qaeda has yet to manage another major attack on the US mainland - the run-up to this November's election may show whether it is still capable of that or not given the degree of expectation among its supporters.

Whether or not this happens, it would be wrong to write off the core of al-Qaeda - its members may well still have the ability to do much damage - but it would also be dangerous to focus too much on them alone when the threat may now be broader.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3644990.stm

[AztecInca]

Geez! Isn`t the world just a great place to live in!

Jihads, bloody jihads, thats all we need!

[Talon]

Indeed and it'll keep on going until Islam evolves

[Fluffybunny]

Indeed and it'll keep on going until Islam evolves

262808[/snapback]

Unfortunately Talon, that will probably never happen. It took 1000 years for Islam to get to where we are today...In another 1000 years will the religion still be around? Will it still be holding fast to the same tenets that it has today?

Islam is not into evolving by any stretch of the imagination...

And before anyone thinks that I am anti-islam, realize that I hold pretty much the same view of catholicism and the various other christian churches as well, but that is a different thread...

[Talon]

Unfortunately Talon, that will probably never happen. It took 1000 years for Islam to get to where we are today...In another 1000 years will the religion still be around? Will it still be holding fast to the same tenets that it has today?

In Europe yes, in America... hopefully, Middle East... hmmm... Islam was created 700 years after Christainity, so if they continue to stay clear of western influences on rational thought... possibly.

Islam is not into evolving by any stretch of the imagination...

Ah but go back 700 years and you could say the same about Christianity.

And before anyone thinks that I am anti-islam, realize that I hold pretty much the same view of catholicism and the various other christian churches as well, but that is a different thread...

Same here, just so happens Islam gets more het off me than the others at the mo because its never out of the media.