Is Al-Qaeda as well as the report seems to indicate ? The numbers seem a bit inflated for sure.
(I think they are on a comeback… just not as good as reported)
Anyone wants to go against the report ? Someone think invading Iraq didn’t help Al Qaeda ?
Anyone know about this IISS british think tank ? Reliable ?
I’m unsure how they are measuring this to be honest. How do they tally the numbers of recruits, let alone a guestimate of how many total operatives there are? Also, they lost a lot of folks in Afghanistan from what I understand…so are they merely bringing themselves back up to full strength, or going far beyond that? I would think the larger your organization, the easier it is to hurt you. Terrorists rely on being able to hide out. A REALLY large organization will have trouble doing that, I’d think.
Also, where is their new safe haven, now that Afghanistan has pretty well folded. Granted, they could (and probably are) still operating in the hinderlands of Afghanistan, but it can’t be all that comfortable for them, as they no longer have support of a soveriegn state. Least, I wouldn’t think it was.
Well, I’m unsure if it helped them over all or not. I’d be willing to say that it helped them somewhat though…it certainly gave them plenty of ammunition supplied by the US itself in helping it recruit. In addition, its helped them with a visible battleground to fight it out with the Americans. However, I’m unsure how well they are doing from THEIR perspective. I’m sure their losses have been pretty heavy (they are a terrorist network, not a real military force after all), though again its hard to say who exactly is doing the heavy lifting on the insurgenst side over there, and who is soaking up the majority of the losses…ex-Saddam loyalist? Disgruntled Iraqis of various stripes? ‘Foriegn fighters’ who are unaligned with any real group, are splinter groups, or simply took it in their head to grab and AK and head for Iraq to kill Americans?
Over all though, to answer your quesiton, I don’t think invading Iraq was a good idea for the US for myriad reasons.
America already have taken steps that Osama bin Laden demanded such as:.
Troops getting out of Saudi Arabia.
Having Bin Laden’s second most annoying dictator captured–by his enemy no less! This was after he exhibited emnity to Sadaam.
Also Pakistan for the first time did a massive offensive in the mountainous terror-friendly provinces after attempted assassination on Musharraf. They killed some al-Qaida, but the main guys slipped away.
Meanwhile, terror cells that call themselves names such as Holy ‘Islamic Revoultionary Force, a subsidiary of al-Qaida’ keep on multiplying.
Although this is classified as the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, notice that the excesses in the prisons is exclusively on USA government’s lap, while some countries slink away from iraq, concentrating with Afghanistan instead. Spain did not run away, as some scurrilous reports say; they just redeployed where they would be more useful.
al-Qaida does not need any part of Fahrenheit 911 for their recruitment movie.