Al Qaeda leadership reported disrupted
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. military and intelligence forces have
killed or captured a major portion of the al Qaeda
leadership and several key successes were won in
the past few months, according to CIA Director
George J. Tenet.
"More than one-third of
the top leadership identified
before the war has been
killed or captured," Mr.
Tenet said in a speech
Wednesday. "Almost half
our successes against
senior al Qaeda members
has come in recent
months."
A transcript of his
remarks at the Nixon Center
was made public yesterday.
"We are still in the 'hunt
phase' of this war — the
painstaking pursuit of
individual al Qaeda
members and their cells," Mr. Tenet said. "This
phase is paying off, but is manpower intensive
and will take a long time. There are no set battles
against units of any size. We are tracking our
enemies down, one by one."
The comments were the first substantive
remarks by the CIA director in months. They
followed the release Wednesday of a
congressional report that criticized U.S.
intelligence failures related to the September 11
terrorist attacks.
Among the CIA's recent successes, Mr. Tenet
said the CIA has "netted":
•Al Qaeda's operations chief in the Persian
Gulf, who helped plan the 1998 bombings in
Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.
•A key al Qaeda planner who was a
conspirator in the September 11 attacks.
•Numerous operations officers and
facilitators.
•A large amount of information now being
used to hunt for additional terrorists.
Mr. Tenet did not mention the names of two
key al Qaeda terrorists who were killed and
captured. They include Qaed Senyan al-Harthi,
who was among six terrorists killed last month in
a daring CIA-directed missile attack from a drone
aircraft in Yemen.
The key al Qaeda planner is Ramzi Binalshibh,
an al Qaeda paymaster arrested in Karachi,
Pakistan, in September.
Several top al Qaeda leaders, however, remain
at large, including Osama bin Laden, Ayman al
Zawahiri and Khalid Sheik Mohammad.
Overall, some 3,000 al Qaeda members have
been detained in over 100 nations, he said, noting
that the arrests have disrupted but not stopped al
Qaeda operations.
Additionally, efforts against al Qaeda have led
to the seizure of some $121 million in
terrorist-related financial assets around the world,
Mr. Tenet said.
The CIA director said the war against
terrorism is not a war with the Muslim world.
"But we are at war with extremists," he said.
"We are at war with terrorists. We are at war with
fanatics. But we are not at war with Islam — even
though the terrorists want to portray it that way."
The terrorists are among the "fringe of the
fringe" of radical Muslims who are violent and
murderous, he said.
Mr. Tenet said al Qaeda and bin Laden are
"formidable" enemies and before September 11
the CIA had a "stable of assets and a body of
information that pinpointed al Qaeda's
Afghanistan infrastructure."
The data helped in the "rapid destruction" of
that infrastructure when the war began Oct. 7,
2001.
Mr. Tenet said the al Qaeda leadership has
been "rattled" by recent losses and is more
cautious. "But let's be very clear: There is no
letup in the threat at the moment."
Al Qaeda is preparing more terrorist attacks
and every captured al Qaeda member has
indicated more strikes are planned, he said.
"Recent tapes by al Qaeda leaders threatening
the U.S. economy and our coalition allies, were
unprecedented in their bluntness and urgency,"
Mr. Tenet said.
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