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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (14772)	11/1/2003 7:14:35 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793673

Stand up the Iraqi police and civil defense quick and as many as possible before March. Yep. It will be done by March. And we will have our troops out of the high risk areas. When the Dems will come out of their July Convention in Boston, their top issues will be Health Care and the Environment. War and the Economy won't give them any traction.

To: D. Long who wrote (14772)	11/1/2003 8:07:57 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793673

Some "Inside Al Qaeda" infro from "Rantburg." But they don't give URLs. _________________________________________ Al-Adel sez losing Afghanistan was all the Talibs’ fault This is an interesting insight into the mind of al-Qaeda’s resident military commander. For the first time, a senior al-Qaida official has provided an assessment of the U.S. war against the terrorist group in Afghanistan, criticizing its communications security and while also claiming that some in the Taliban provided intelligence to coalition forces that resulted in the deaths of al-Qaida members and their families. "We wuz betrayed!" SAIF AL-ADIL, currently the al-Qaida military commander, claims that during one night in October 2001, U.S. missiles came close to killing him three times. Shame they didn’t succeed in that task or we might not have had Monday’s bombings. The critique is carried in a magazine called The Voice of Jihad (Sawt Jihad), parts of which were published this week in Sharq al-Awsat, a respected Saudi newspaper, and translated by the U.S. intelligence community. One senior U.S. official said the intelligence community had seen the article and believed it to be authentic, although since there are no time references in it beyond 2001 it is impossible to know when it was written. Another official noted that al-Adil “fancies himself as a military strategist and thinker” and such a critique would fit within what he sees as his responsibilities. As to the content of the after-action report, the first official said he would not comment on whether the United States was able to take advantage of the al-Qaida failings to the extent al-Adil described. Nor would he comment on any alleged Taliban betrayals of al-Qaida positions. "I can say no more!" “I am not going to say whether it gives us more or less credit than we deserve,” said the official. “But it’s good to see someone giving us credit.” Snip. According to the al-Qaida version of the war, the terror group hastened its own defeat. Al-Adil said reckless use of satellite phones and betrayal by “some Taliban elements” permitted American forces to easily pinpoint the “Arab Afghans” — al-Qaida’s Afghan-based fighters — in Kandahar during October and November of 2001. The southern city of Kandahar was the spiritual base for the Taliban and was home to many al-Qaida leaders. Among those killed as a result of the lapses in security was Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs, al-Adil’s predecessor as military commander of al-Qaida, and several other al-Qaida leaders along with their wives and children. I thought that Abu Zubaydah took over after Atef and then Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, unless there’s a distinctions between global ops chief and being the military commander. Al-Adil described how cruise missiles and U.S. military aircraft, apparently helicopters, tracked down and killed carloads of al-Qaida operatives and their families and almost killed him one night in October 2001. In another incident, he noted a deadly strike in Kandahar. “We heard suddenly the sound of a big explosion far away. I asked the brothers by telephone and learned the second house of the Al Wafa Charity Foundation in Kandahar had been pinpointed and hit by a cruise missile because satellite telephones were used. The hit killed Brother Abdal Wahid.” As al-Adil and his men were preparing a meal for themselves just before daybreak, “We heard a missile passing over our heads immediately before we had finished eating and it exploded 100 meters from the house. We immediately started to leave, fearing that we were the target and the targeting would be corrected so as to hit us.” A second missile did hit close by but al-Adil was unhurt. Later, he said, another helicopter-fired missile came even closer. “The aircraft fired the missile and I saw it moving toward us and threw myself on the ground. The missile fell close to Brother Asim and I don’t know what happened next.” Asim was severely wounded, he says, but he was not. Regarding the deaths of al-Qaida family members, again al-Adil says it was the result of a security breach. “Aircraft were following the vehicles [all of which were Toyota Corollas, long known to be an al-Qaida favorite] and the brothers stopped to talk a little before moving toward the village. The helicopters engaged them as soon as the distance between them got down to 5.1 kilometers [3.2 miles],” al-Adel wrote. In all, he reported, 10 people were killed in the attack — three al-Qaida members, five woman and two children. I found this somewhat interesting because the standard al-Qaeda press releases are generally propaganda pieces like the reports of hundreds of thousands of US troops dying every day in Afghanistan. While I’m not dumb enough to think that the leadership believes their own propaganda, it does provide an interesting look into the mind of the key driver of the nuts and bolts aspect of the terror network these days. rantburg.com