Rudy and The Terrorists

A tease...

Joe Conason, in Salon:

The familiar herd instinct of the mainstream media is powerful, unswerving and often plain wrong. While editors and producers are supposed to make judgments based on a combination of news value and public interest, their choices often seem to be based on nothing more elevated than an allergy to complexity or an affinity for smut. And occasionally, as in the case of Rudolph Giuliani during this past week, the sudden appearance of not one but two juicy investigations overwhelms the system's capacity to absorb and regurgitate.

But when the nation's news executives decided which of two highly embarrassing Giuliani stories to feature, nearly all of them made the wrong choice. While they lavished enormous attention upon a Politico story dealing with adultery and bureaucracy, they should be devoting at least as much time to yet another in the long series of Wayne Barrett scoops in the Village Voice, because this one involves business and terrorism.

A taste...

Wayne Barrett, Village Voice:

Three weeks after 9/11, when the roar of fighter jets still haunted the city's skyline, the emir of gas-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, toured Ground Zero. Although a member of the emir's own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack—a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM—al-Thani rushed to New York in its aftermath, offering to make a $3 million donation, principally to the families of its victims. Rudy Giuliani, apparently unaware of what the FBI and CIA had long known about Qatari links to Al Qaeda, appeared on CNN with al-Thani that night and vouched for the emir when Larry King asked the mayor: "You are a friend of his, are you not?"

Because Bush failed to destroy them.

Guardian:

Al-Qaida has revived, extended its influence, and has the capacity to carry out a spectacular strike similar to the September 11 attacks on America, one of the world's leading security thinktanks warned yesterday.

There is increasing evidence "that 'core' al-Qaida is proving adaptable and resilient, and has retained an ability to plan and coordinate large-scale attacks in the western world despite the attrition it has suffered", said the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "The threat from Islamist terrorism remains as high as ever, and looks set to get worse," it added.

"The US and its allies have failed to deal a death blow to al-Qaida; the organisation's ideology appears to have taken root to such a degree that it will require decades to eradicate," it continued.

Because Bush Has Failed To Defeat Them

BBC:

Members of al-Qaeda's North Africa wing say they carried out two suicide attacks that have killed at least 50 people in Algeria in the past two days.

The group, which calls itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, made the claim in an internet statement.

In the latest attack, at least 30 people died on Saturday when a truck packed with explosives drove into a naval barracks in the port of Dellys.

The Terrorism Index: Damning Expert Report On Bush

This is why, even in purely political terms, the Democrats need not capitulate to Bush and the Republicans on anything. Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress conducted a survey on national security issues. They call it The Terrorism Index.

Surveying more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy experts—Republicans and Democrats alike—the FOREIGN POLICY/Center for American Progress Terrorism Index is the only comprehensive, nonpartisan effort to mine the highest echelons of the nation’s foreign-policy establishment for its assessment of how the United States is fighting the war on terror. First released in July 2006, and again last February, the index attempts to draw definitive conclusions about the war’s priorities, policies, and progress. Its participants include people who have served as secretary of state, national security advisor, senior White House aides, top commanders in the U.S. military, seasoned intelligence professionals, and distinguished academics. Eighty percent of the experts have served in the U.S. government—including more than half in the Executive Branch, 32 percent in the military, and 21 percent in the intelligence community.

How bad is it?

Nearly every foreign policy of the U.S. government—from domestic surveillance activities and the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to U.S. energy policies and efforts in the Middle East peace process—was sharply criticized by the experts. More than 6 in 10 experts, for instance, believe U.S. energy policies are negatively affecting the country’s national security. The experts were similarly critical of the CIA’s rendition of terrorist suspects to countries known to torture prisoners and the Pentagon’s policy of trying detainees before military tribunals.

No effort of the U.S. government was more harshly criticized, however, than the war in Iraq. In fact, that conflict appears to be the root cause of the experts’ pessimism about the state of national security. Nearly all—92 percent—of the index’s experts said the war in Iraq negatively affects U.S. national security, an increase of 5 percentage points from a year ago. Negative perceptions of the war in Iraq are shared across the political spectrum, with 84 percent of those who describe themselves as conservative taking a dim view of the war’s impact. More than half of the experts now oppose the White House’s decision to “surge” additional troops into Baghdad, a remarkable 22 percentage-point increase from just six months ago. Almost 7 in 10 now support a drawdown and redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.

The report is broken down into sections, and I will give you just a taste of each.

The Failing Surge

More than half say the surge is having a negative impact on U.S. national security, up 22 percentage points from just six months ago. This sentiment was shared across party lines, with 64 percent of conservative experts saying the surge is having either a negative impact or no impact at all.

They rate the handling of the war as a 2.9 on a scale of 10.

A Perfect Nightmare

A perfect terrorist storm may be brewing in Pakistan. When asked to choose the nation that is most likely to become the next al Qaeda stronghold, more experts chose Pakistan than any other country, including Iraq. Osama bin Laden reportedly remains at large along Pakistan’s mountainous border with Afghanistan, where al Qaeda is also regrouping...

No surprise to anyone paying attention. Bush has been a complete disaster in the region that actually produced the September 11 terrorists. Most of whom, including Osama bin Forgotten, remain at large.

Will the enemy follow us home?

Only 12 percent believe that terrorist attacks would occur in the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Given the frequent use of this dishonest excuse for continuing the war, I will repeat this quote:

Only 12 percent believe that terrorist attacks would occur in the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Did you get that?

Only 12 percent believe that terrorist attacks would occur in the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.

The Next Front

Nearly half said that Jordan is the neighbor most likely to experience a spillover of violence from Iraq—more than twice as many who pinpointed any other country.

Interesting. They point out that most people assume Saudi Arabia or Turkey would be the most likely countries to suffer from a spillover effect. The experts say it would be this relatively moderate, and critically important, ally.

Deciphering the chatter.

The report then compares the rhetoric from the leading 2008 presidential candidates and the report's conclusions. None fare well. It says much about the disastrous impact of political posturing as opposed to calm expert analysis.

No love from Russia.

When asked to choose the U.S. ally that least serves U.S. interests, 34 percent chose Russia, far ahead of complicated friends such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

To anyone following the Putin regime, this, too, is no surprise In this amateur's opinion, his opposition to our policies is sometimes correct; but both his domestic and foreign policies are increasingly frightening.

Overall, the conclusion is one I keep repeating, and which we need to help the Congressional Democrats promote: the best defense for America's national security is to oppose the disastrous policies of Bush and the Republicans.

Please read the report.

Pakistan Bleeding

Guardian:

A suspected suicide bomber today killed 11 people and injured scores more following renewed violence at Islamabad's Red Mosque.

Seven police officers were among those killed when the blast tore though a hotel about a quarter of a mile from the mosque, where religious students clashed earlier in the day with security forces.

At least 11 people died and 43 were injured, officials said. Local television showed victims, many of them bleeding or badly burned and with their clothes in tatters, being carried from the wreckage to ambulances that had rushed to the Muzaffar hotel.

Even by his own definitions, George W. Bush enables terrorism.

So, the shiny new National Intelligence Estimate says Al-Qaida in Iraq is poised to attack us here, on U.S. soil. As Digby notes, in Salon, this is the latest Bush Administration hype to justify the continued occupation of Iraq. Of course, it also ignores the real problem, that al Qaida is growing stronger in western Pakistan, while the Taliban are stepping up attacks in Afghanistan, and are even threatening to ungulf nuclear-armed Pakistan. And, it also brings us back to square one: the Bush Administration's failure to capture Osama bin Laden, when they could have, at Tora Bora, in December 2001.

But let's forget all that. Let's take the new NIE at its word: let's pretend al-Qaeda in Iraq is actually now capable of attacking us on U.S. soil. Who's fault is that?

As terrorism expert Amy Zalman points out, Al Qaeda in Iraq was only founded in 2004. That would be after we invaded Iraq. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, that was the year Abu Musab al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to bin Laden. And, of course, Bush hyped the killing of Zarqawi as a severe blow to al Qaida in Iraq, which his own NIE would now seem to suggest was just a tad overstated. Beyond that, though, as NBC reported in 2004, the Bush Administration missed several chances to kill Zarqawi, beginning in June 2002. Which would be before we invaded Iraq. Which would be before Zarqawi founded al-Qaeda in Iraq.

So, let's put this together. Let's take that brand spanking new NIE report at face value. Let's just assume that it's correct, and not hyped, and that Al Qaeda in Iraq is now capable of attacking us on U.S. soil. Whose fault would that be? George W. Bush. Fighting them there to enable them to come fight us here. On his own terms, by his own definitions, and according to his own propaganda, George W. Bush is undermining our national security.

UPDATE: The Washington Post adds its perspective on the NIE:

The White House faced fresh political peril yesterday in the form of a new intelligence assessment that raised sharp questions about the success of its counterterrorism strategy and judgment in making Iraq the focus of that effort.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has been able to deflect criticism of his counterterrorism policy by repeatedly noting the absence of any new domestic attacks and by citing the continuing threat that terrorists in Iraq pose to U.S. interests.

But this line of defense seemed to unravel a bit yesterday with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate that concludes that al-Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" by reestablishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership. The report also notes that al-Qaeda has been able "to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks," by associating itself with an Iraqi subsidiary.

And the New York Times:

President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.

The intelligence report, the most formal assessment since the Sept. 11 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against Al Qaeda, and describes the terrorist organization as having significantly strengthened over the past two years.

In identifying the main reasons for Al Qaeda’s resurgence, intelligence officials and White House aides pointed the finger squarely at a hands-off approach toward the tribal areas by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who last year brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in an attempt to drain support for Islamic extremism in the region.

That Other War

New York Times:

Suicide bombers struck a police recruitment center and a military convoy on Sunday in Pakistan’s volatile northwest, killing at least 49 people in a rapidly escalating conflict between militants and the government.

Since July 3, suicide attacks have claimed 103 lives in the nation’s tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province, including an explosion on Saturday that killed 24 soldiers.

The latest bombings come at a time of extreme tension in a region used as a redoubt by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Extremists have called for a holy war against Pakistan’s government to avenge the storming of the Red Mosque last week in Islamabad, a military assault that killed at least 75 people holed up inside. At the same time, a 10-month-old truce between the government and local tribal leaders seems to have fatally come undone.

The Democratic Party is the party of National Security

A few times, over the last several months, I've posted diaries based around news reports that al Qaeda and the Taliban are regrouping and growing in strength, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I write these diaries to underscore the fact that even on the single issue that temporarily made Bush's presidency, he has been a complete failure. Inevitably, though, someone in the comments, probably without having read beyond the title, will say that it isn't real, and that it's all Bush propaganda, meant to scare us into submission. At the risk of triggering a stroke, I will refrain from fully expressing how I feel about these mistaken responses. Instead, I will calmly elaborate on why the re-emergence of al Qaeda and the Taliban need to be taken seriously, and why their growing strength is not at all a political positive for Bush. In fact, the continued existence and growing strength of the organizations responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks constitute the Bush Administration's signature foreign policy failure.

To be blunt: to ignore the reality of international terrorism is simply foolish. And anyone who believes the increasing number of worldwide terrorist attacks is a myth need only pay more attention to the news.

Yes, the Bush Administration invented terrorist threats that didn't exist, as Keith Olbermann so brilliantly explicated:

Part 1



Part 2



Yes, there are domestic terrorists, such as those who attack and bomb abortion clinics.

Yes, the corporate media see terrorism everywhere, happily playing terror propagandists.

Yes, Bush continually equates his Iraq disaster with September 11.

None of that invalidates the reality that we are not the only nation in the world that has religious extremists obsessed with destroying those who don't think and worship the way they do. We do live in a dangerous world. To acknowledge that is not to embolden Bush or the Republicans. It is, in fact, yet another very strong argument against their continued rule.

The facts are very simple:

Bush Administration bungling allowed Osama bin Laden to escape, in the December 2001 battle for Tora Bora.

The Iraq War has been a boon for terrorist recruitment.

The Taliban have recently stepped up attacks in Afghanistan. reported, last month:

The Taliban are also now a legitimate threat to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

And then, there's this, from yesterday's Washington Post:

Six years after the Bush administration declared war on al-Qaeda, the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks, according to a new Bush administration intelligence report to be discussed today at a White House meeting.

The report, a five-page threat assessment compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, is titled "Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West," intelligence officials said. It concludes that the group has significantly rebuilt itself despite concerted U.S. attempts to smash the network.

These facts do not support the Bush Administration. Neither does general talk about terrorism. Bush tried, once again, to politicize fear of terrorism, before last year's election, and it didn't work. People aren't buying it, anymore. In fact, the polls show Bush has a negative approval rating on national security. If we continue to emphasize the above facts, those negative ratings should only increase. This is part of why it is so important to publicize the growing threats from terrorists: not only do we need to be aware of them, but they prove, once and for all, that nearly six years after the September 11 attacks, Bush has only made the risk of terrorism greater!

We are not fear-mongers. We are speaking calmly about real threats. The risk of terrorism should not be misconstrued as excuses for militancy, Constitutional abuses or the undermining of individual liberty. That was Bush's way. It didn't work. It was, in fact, counter-productive. That's what we need to talk about. That simple fact creates one of the greatest political opportunities Democrats have had in decades. This is a political paradigm shift. The Republicans have long been the party people turned to, when they were afraid. We can tell them to stop being afraid. Because we have a better way.

Strength does not mean staggering around like a drunken frat boy with a sledgehammer. It means being smart. On national security issues, it means being surgeons with scalpels. Having the world's greatest weapons arsenal means nothing if we are inept at diplomacy and intelligence. The facts speak for themselves. The Bush Administration is an utter failure and a continuing danger. The Democratic Party is now the party of national security.

More Polling News

Editor & Publisher:

A new Gallup Poll reveals that fewer than 3 in 10 Americans saying the United States is winning the war on terror -- the lowest figure since the 9/11 attacks.

Further, while most Americans consider the war in Afghanistan part of the war on terror, more than half reject the idea that the war in Iraq is.

Results of the June 11-14 national survey of 1,007 adults find that that 29% of Americans say the United States is winning, while 20% say the terrorists are winning and 50% say neither side. Independents and Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to doubt U.S. progress, but even so only 53% of Republicans feel we have the upper hand.

Concerning Iraq, 43% say it is part of war on terrorism but 53% reject this notion.

A large majority of Americans no longer buy the bullshit. Roughly a third are even more stupid than Bush.

Why Does He Hate America?

Washington Post:

The Bush administration wants to overhaul the troubled agency in charge of security at most federal buildings, cutting personnel and giving a bigger role to local police. Lawmakers are fighting the plan, saying that it could leave government employees more vulnerable to crime or attacks by terrorists.

That Other War

BBC:

A bomb attack on an Afghan police bus has killed up to 35 people and injured many in Kabul, officials say.

The bomb went off close to police headquarters in the city centre at rush hour. Most of the dead are police recruits or instructors.

It is thought to be the highest number of deaths caused by a bomb in Kabul since the Taleban were ousted in 2001.

One more in an endless series of examples of why we should have actually finished the job in Afghanistan, and helped the Afghans get back on their feet, rather than wasting lives and money in a war that had nothing to do with international terrorism.

Meanwhile...

Washington Post:

The remains of 13 members of an Iraqi tae kwon do team kidnapped last year have been found in western Iraq, police and hospital officials said Saturday.

That Other War

New York Times:

A suicide bomber driving a taxi set off his explosives near a convoy of American civilian contractors and accompanying soldiers here this morning, killing himself and four bystanders but only wounding one of his intended targets, the Kabul police said.

Merchants Of Death

In Salon, Robert Dreyfuss discusses the disappointment of war critics in the failure (thus far) of Congressional Democrats to stop Bush's Iraq disaster:

Still, Democratic criticism of administration policy in Iraq looks muscle-bound when compared with the party's readiness to go along with the president's massive military buildup, domestically and globally. Nothing underlines the tacit alliance between so-called foreign policy realists and hard-line exponents of neoconservative-style empire building more than the Washington consensus that the United States needs to expand the budget of the Defense Department without end, while increasing the size of the U.S. armed forces. In addition, spending on the 16 agencies and other organizations that make up the official U.S. "intelligence community" -- including the CIA -- and on homeland security is going through the roof.

He then points out that of our Presidential candidates, only Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Gov. Bill Richardson are calling for cuts in the defense budget, while Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are actually calling for additional 80,000-100,000 military personnel!

Then:

How astonishing are the budgetary numbers? Consider the trajectory of U.S. defense spending over the past nearly two decades. From the end of the Cold War into the mid-1990s, defense spending actually fell significantly. In constant 1996 dollars, the Pentagon's budget dropped from a peacetime high of $376 billion, at the end of President Reagan's military buildup in 1989, to a low of $265 billion in 1996. (That compares with post-World War II wartime highs of $437 billion in 1953, during the Korean War, and $388 billion in 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War.) After the Soviet empire peacefully disintegrated, the 1990s decline wasn't exactly the hoped-for "peace dividend," but it wasn't peanuts either.

However, since Sept. 12, 2001, defense spending has simply exploded. For 2008, the Bush administration is requesting a staggering $650 billion, compared with the already staggering $400 billion the Pentagon collected in 2001. Even subtracting the costs of the ongoing "global war on terrorism" -- which is what the White House likes to call its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- for fiscal year 2008, the Pentagon will still spend $510 billion. In other words, even without the president's two wars, defense spending will have nearly doubled since the mid-1990s. Given that the United States has literally no significant enemy state to fight anywhere on the planet, this represents a remarkable, if perverse, achievement. As a famous Democratic politician once asked: Where is the outrage?

Let me repeat that: the defense budget for items that have nothing to do with 9/11 is being doubled! Except, of course, that it has everything to do with 9/11. Politically. As with every other aspect of governance, 9/11 is being used to justify political machinations that have nothing else to do with it! And with weapons proliferation, the numbers are simply staggering. Using figures from the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation (CACN), Dreyfuss points out:

-28 weapons systems will, by themselves, cost us $44 billion.

-Missile "Defense" will cost us $11 billion a year!

-Our 2008 defense spending will be 29 times the combined spending of our most hyped potential enemies: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

-Our "defense" budget is now exactly double that of the world's next six largest military powers: China, Russia, the U.K., France, Japan and Germany

-Our "defense" budget now accounts for about 48% of the entire world's military spending!

Of course, all this military spending isn't doing much good in actual wars. As the McClatchy Newspapers reported, in April:

A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.

And it's not only not helping national security, it's actually hurting it! While our politicians like to claim that we're working to stop weapons proliferation, around the world, the Stockholm-based Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission concluded, on June 1:

There are even some waves of new armaments: the United States missile shield may be triggering countermeasures by China and Russia in the nuclear weapons area; and nuclear weapons with new missions may be under development in the United States and elsewhere. While the peaceful uses of space and satellites are developing at a dizzying pace, which facilitates global information exchange and communication, the most advanced military Powers are calculating how they can most effectively pursue war in this environment.

The International Herald Tribune also reported, earlier this month:

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in an interview published Sunday that U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons against sites in Europe.

The threat, voiced in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera and other foreign media, marked one of Putin's most strident statements to date against the U.S. plans and came just days before the Russian president is to join other leaders at a Group of Eight summit in Germany.

And the CACN concluded, in March:

The proposed nuclear cooperation deal between India and the US has raised concerns that it could severely weaken the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and unravel the international non-proliferation framework by setting a dangerous precedent for single-country exceptions from the non-proliferation establishment and giving India, which is not a party to the NPT, an increased ability to produce nuclear weapons. To take effect, this agreement requires that Congress make changes to long-standing US laws and international guidelines enacted to prevent transfers of nuclear technology to states outside the NPT. Legislation to do so was recently introduced in the House and Senate.

But let's not waste time trying to imagine how we could better spend all that money, how many lives would be saved, and how much more stable we would be, in both military and geopolitical terms. Let's cut to the chase: who is benefiting? You can check the company profiles here.

They're Watching

ABC News:

A terrorist watch list compiled by the FBI has apparently swelled to include more than half a million names.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

The bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.

If they really need to watch that many people, they're really not very good at what they're doing. If they really believe there are that many potential terrorists, they probably need pscyhiatric help.

Oh, and just in case: Hi!

Another Bush Success Story: Terrorism On The Rise. Again.

McClatchy Newspapers:

State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.

The annual report's release comes amid a bitter feud between the White House and Congress over funding for U.S. troops in Iraq and a deadline favored by Democrats to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.

Ultimately, they decided to issue the report on or near the congressionally mandated deadline of Monday, the officials said.

Americans in Germany On Alert

Spiegel:

The US Embassy in Berlin on Friday announced that it was increasing its "security posture" in light of a perceived threat. The Americans didn't say why, but the German press writes that an Iraqi terror group may have been casing US targets in Germany.

A German police officer stands outside the US Embassy in Berlin in this 2001 file photo. The embassy announced Friday it was stepping up security.
The US Embassy in Berlin on Friday announced that it was increasing its "security posture" due to what an announcement on its Web site refers to as a "heightened threat situation." The announcement urged US citizens living in Germany to "increase their vigilance and take appropriate steps to bolster their own personal security."

The message, which did not appear on embassy Web sites in other European countries, did not mention any specific threats nor did it indicate why the message was posted on Friday. The embassy likewise refused to comment on why the message had been posted, nor did it comment on what the nature of the threat might be.

Before Bush's immoral, illegal, and unnecessary war in Iraq, Americans had nothing to fear from Iraqis. Iraq never attacked either the United States or Americans. Just another in an endless string of examples of how Bush is making the world less safe for Americans.

Al Qaeda Resurgent

Spiegel Online:

The news is alarming. US and French intelligence agencies are convinced that terrorist network Al-Qaida has reorganized, and even that it has developed new training camps, both in Afghanistan and the remote tribal regions of northern Pakistan. They believe that a new generation of terrorists has come of age, and some are suspected of planning attacks in the West.

Five and a half years have passed since Sept. 11, 2001 and the beginning of the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The physical presence of Osama bin Laden's network was largely destroyed at the time, with the terrorist camps which had trained an estimated 20,000 men quickly reduced to rubble. Two years ago, the White House crowed that two-thirds of Al-Qaida's leadership had been eliminated. "We're winning," US President George W. Bush claimed recently. "Al-Qaida is on the run."

But are they really on the run? Of course, there can be no doubt that the network no longer has nearly the capacity it had when it organized 9/11. But the attempts to reorganize are obvious, and the new camps are an indication that the efforts have been successful. According to Time magazine, each of the camps has the capacity to train between 10 and 300 jihadists. "We know they exist, but it's like finding a needle in a haystack," the magazine quotes a US military official in Afghanistan as saying.

Terrorism in Algeria

Guardian:

Two almost simultaneous bomb blasts in Algiers, one targeting the prime minister's office, have killed at least 17 people and injured more than 80, Algerian authorities said today.

Nine people died in the explosion at the headquarters of the prime minister, Abdelaziz Belkhadem.

A second bomb at a police station in Bab Ezzouar, on the city's eastern outskirts, killed eight and wounded 50. Police sources said the attack on the government building, at 10.45am local time, was a suicide bombing.

Germany Narrowly Avoided Terror Attack

Spiegel Online:

Germany narrowly escaped what could have been its worst-ever terrorist attack last July when two bombs placed on trains failed to detonate. The case comes to trial in a Lebanese court this week with German police suspecting that the attack was an initiation test for potential al-Qaida recruits.

German authorities believe that the two Lebanese studentswho tried but failed to detonate self-made bombs in two German trains last July may have done so to qualify themselves for al-Qaida missions in Iraq.

The trial of the two alleged would-be bombers, Youssef el Hajdib, 21, Jihad Hamad, 20 and four other men starts on Wednesday in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Youssef al-Hajdib, who is in custody in a Berlin jail, is being tried in absentia.

Youssef and Jihad had made crude bombs from gas canisters filled with petrol and diesel and deposited them on two German regional trains hidden in large suitcases on July 31. They both boarded trains at Cologne's main train station and got off after depositing the bombs.