Bill Roggio offers the latest on the Domadola strike,concluding:

It is clear the reports from earlier in the week that al—Qaeda is refocusing efforts in Afghanistan are accurate. With the recent capture or killing of several high—level al—Qaeda leaders, including Abu Hamza Rabia and Abu Musab al—Suri before last week's strike, it is clear U.S. and Pakistani intelligence is gaining a clearing picture of al—Qaeda's network and operations in along the Afghan—Pakistani border.

As al—Qaeda amasses strength in the region and grows more confident in its abilities to operate more openly, they expose themselves to intelligence operations and military strikes. The nature of the intelligence on this meeting gives clues as to the nature of intelligence operations in the region: either the U.S. has sophisticate signals intelligence able to penetrate al—Qaeda's communications; there are one or several high value human intelligence sources within al—Qaeda and the Taliban; or a combination of the two. Whatever the answer, al—Qaeda has lo[s]t five senior leaders over the span of five weeks.

The meeting in Damadola was a high value target of opportunity which could not be passed up. U.S. intelligence took the risk, pulled the trigger and bagged three senior al—Qaeda commanders. Masri, Habib, and al—Magrabi have been removed from the chain of command, and must be replaced by junior operatives who possess neither their stature, experience or connections. Al—Qaeda has been weakened. 

Elsewhere in Pakistan, the round up of Al Qaeda operatives also continues:

A suspected militant accused of involvement in two failed assassination attempts on Pakistan's President was arrested near a remote northwestern village Sunday, an official said.

...Omar Rahman, was captured by Pakistan's authorities along with two family members during a raid near Sawat, 180 miles north of Peshawar, said the official to a foreign news agency. [snip]

Rahman's arrest came 10 days after Pakistan published photos of six terrorist suspects including Abu Faraj al—Libbi, a Libyan accused by Musharraf of orchestrating the assassination attempts. Rahman's photo was not among those

 It lookks to me like we have some really special people working very hard in impossible situations to protect us, and they are gaining the upperhand.

Clarice Feldman  1 19 06