> Has it? Do we really know that? I've seen claims to the contrary -
> that AQ is on the run and not recruiting new members - but who
> knows? Does anyone?
>From Rashid's article:
> On September 14 Afghan police intercepted an explosives-laden
> tanker truck headed for the US air base outside Kabul, and two days
> later rockets were fired at a US garrison at Khost, in the largest
> artillery barrage by Al Qaeda forces since their defeat last November.
>
> The success of the US-led Afghan war depends less on catching the
> remnants of Al Qaeda than on insuring that the escalating political
> crisis does not cause the demise of the Karzai government. Since last
> December the Bush Administration has primarily focused on its
> military and intelligence war against Al Qaeda rather than on a
> political and economic strategy, which would help stabilize the fragile
> government and kick-start reconstruction.
[....]
> The war against terrorism has shown notable successes with the
> breakup of Al Qaeda cells and large-scale arrests in Karachi,
> Singapore and Buffalo in September alone. But the
> Afghanistan/Pakistan region is the key to insuring that Al Qaeda
> does not re-emerge as a military force under a new Islamist or
> nationalist guise. Everywhere else in the world, Al Qaeda operates
> underground and in secret. In Afghanistan it rockets US troops in
> broad daylight.
>
> Extremist forces are making a comeback in the Pashtun belt by
> coalescing around Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. An ethnic Pashtun, career
> warlord and former Afghan prime minister, Hekmatyar is now one of
> the biggest threats to Afghan stability. Afghan officials and Western
> diplomats in Kabul say there is clear evidence that Hekmatyar--who
> killed thousands of civilians in a vain bid to capture the city during
> the country's early 1990s civil war--has joined forces with Al Qaeda
> and Taliban remnants to destabilize the fledgling Karzai government.
[....]
In an interview with Marc Cooper, Jane Corbin of the BBC address the current state of Al Qaeda:
She says "It's definitely been hampered, it has not been put out of business."
-- Shane
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