Tuesday, February 2, 2010

U.S. Chipping Away at Al-Qaeda

By Ryan Mauro

His attempt to take credit for the Christmas Day bomb attack indicates the arch-terrorist has lost his mojo.

Bin Laden’s taking credit for the attempted crotch bombing on Christmas Day is a sign of desperation, an attempt to preserve what little is left of his image of being divinely guided and powerful in an almost inhuman manner. There is no evidence that bin Laden had any role in the plot, aside from obviously setting up the original al-Qaeda network, but he has to take credit for something at this point. Bin Laden’s message is more than the product of a large ego. It is part of a strategy for survival. Al-Qaeda has been unable to repeat an attack on the scale of 9/11, and since those attacks, U.S. forces have overthrown the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, numerous Muslim countries have taken a harder line against it, and the group has suffered a dramatic drop in popularity as a result of its failures and its killing of eight times as many Muslims as non-Muslims. [more…]

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