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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6168)	1/25/2004 4:33:54 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 20773

Speaking of Iran, a German court has been told that bin Laden planned 9/11 attacks in Iran with Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials. If this turns out to be true, Iran need to be put next on the list. From the One Hand Clapping blog: Al Qaeda's grim present and bleak future Also, a German court has been told that bin Laden planned 9/11 attacks in Iran with Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials I explained earlier today why al Qaeda is now simply in a survival mode: "They have lost too much major talent either to death or capture. Their first team is pretty much off the field and the benchers trying to carry on aren't up to the job." Comes now the words of State Department counter-terrorism coordinator Cofer Black: "The Al Qaida of the 9/11 period is under catastrophic stress. They are being hunted down, their days are numbered." US intelligence estimates are that about 70 percent of al Qaeda has been neutralized (summarizing from the linked article): * The Saudis have made significant gains against al Qaeda. Saudi authorities have arrested more than 600 al Qaeda suspects and have killed or captured many top al Qaeda leaders. * Al Qaeda has lost most of its offensive capability and "thousands of Al Qaida operatives have been captured, killed or neutralized, with cells eliminated even in such strongholds as Kuwait and Yemen." * Al Qaeda basically cannot operate out of area and therefore will "focus largely on Saudi Arabia, the Horn of Africa while seeking to consolidate under the protection of Iran." * "The loss of veteran insurgency operatives has reduced the lethality of operations, officials said. Another factor has been the lack of success by Al Qaida to establish and sustain cells in many Western countries." I explained almost two years ago why al Qaeda could not stand up against the American military: In short, they were entirely unprepared for the level and intensity of the attacks America's armed forces made against them. At best, they could fight well in a low-intensity war, but we are fighting at a much higher intensity. The good news is that it is too late for them to make it up now. Huge numbers of their first-line fighters are dead or prisoner. Their main training camps have been destroyed. Militarily, our war against al Qaeda will get easier, not harder. I think I stand vindicated in that prediction. The same news article I linked above also has this tidbit: [In Hamburg, a German court was told that authorities have a witness who claims that Osama Bin Laden met Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials on May 4, 2001. The meeting took place in an air force base to plan the suicide attacks in the United States in September 2001. The witness was identified as an Iranian defector, known by his cover name Hamid Reza Zakeri, who had been an agent for Iranian intelligence until mid-2001.] As I explained in the ending pages of my long paper, The Soil of Arab Terrorism, Iran's Islamist revolution and regime formed the theo-political foundation for bin ladenism. I am much more inclined to believe that Osama bin Laden coordinated the 9/11 attacks with Iran than with Iraq. Both Iran and bin Laden said that the United States is the Great Satan. by Donald Sensing. Link to this post: 1/24/2004 10:13:58 PM Comment (2)