PrintSeptember 21, 2007
Al Qaeda's Cry for Help
Apparently despairing of any other kind of workable offensive, Al Qaeda is busily engaged in a media one. Now there's another tape.
Any moment now some Democrat will announce that this is an obvious indication that we are losing the fight, and that even if we should manage to bomb and destroy their Camcorder, another will just replace it! This is interesting because of what the tape said, and what it didn't say. I'll attempt to fill in a few blanks.
On the tape, Bin Laden states that it is mandatory that Pakistani Muslims rise up against the Musharraf government on the grounds that the Pakistani military's clearing and killing of the terrorists holding the Red Mosque,
"demonstrated Musharraf's insistence on continuing his loyalty, submissiveness and aid to America against the Muslims ... and makes armed rebellion against him and removing him obligatory...when the capability is there, it is obligatory to rebel against the apostate ruler, as is the case now..."
What is not said: that supposed "safe haven" area of Pakistan along the Afghan border is not looking so safe to Al Qaeda. There are U.S. and coalition forces pressing in on them on the Afghan side and Pakistan has moved military forces in from its side. It's really "Please, somebody do something to get us outta this squeeze!"
Also on the tape Ayman al-Zawahri, who according to AP:
"boasted that the U.S. was being defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts... Al-Zawahri called for attacks on French and Spanish interests in North Africa and on U.N. and African peacekeepers expected to deploy in Sudan's Darfur region...Al-Zawahri called on supporters in North Africa to ‘cleanse the Maghrib (western region) of Islam of the children of France and Spain. ... Stand with your sons the mujahedeen against the Crusaders and their children.'"
What is not said: everyone who is not a Democratic Senator or member of Congress knows that we are not being defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, even if they think we cannot win or are stuck in quagmire. AQ's ploy from 2006 to foment massive sectarian violence to drive us out has crumbled despite initial success. In previous messages Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri have called for mujahedeen fighters and martyrs to stream into Iraq, the central front. However, with even the Sunnis of Iraq, their only source of indigenous support and assistance turning on them, recruiting and the flow of volunteers is no doubt way down. They have also lost their bases of operation in Anbar, Diyala and elsewhere. Now they are begging for someone to start doing something, somewhere, anybody, anywhere, lest Al Qaeda get relegated by the "Ummah" to irrelevancy.
It's a cry for help.
Odd that they call for attacks on U.N. Peacekeepers in Darfur, when none are there. Then too, how many times has the media or the groups calling for an end to the horrors of Darfur ever point out that to Al Qaeda, the murderous ethnic-religious-racial cleansing there is part and parcel of the jihad?
