Seven Years Later: Al Qaeda Rising
Posted by: terrance in bush, current events, iran, iraq, politics, religion, war on terrorEd. Note: I don’t have the obligatory 9/11 recollection post in me today, in part because of it’s dual significance to my family, since a one year ago today we began what turned out to be a painful period of loss. I’ve posted my recollections previously, and you can read them the post about gay 9/11 victims. Today, I’m going to dedicate to pointing out significant news items and blog posts from others.
Seven year’s later, Al Qaeda is gaining ground in Pakistan, and shows no signs of weakening.
Seven years after 9/11, al Qaida and its allies are gaining ground across the region where the plot was hatched, staging their most lethal attacks yet against NATO forces and posing a growing threat to the U.S.-backed governments in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan.
While there have been no new strikes on the U.S. homeland, the Islamic insurrection inspired by Osama bin Laden has claimed thousands of casualties and displaced tens of thousands of people and shows no sign of slackening in the face of history’s most powerful military alliance.
The insurgency now stretches from Afghanistan’s border with Iran through the southern half of the country. The Taliban now are able to interdict three of the four major highways that connect Kabul, the capital, to the rest of the country.
“I am not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan,” Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded before a congressional committee on Tuesday.
Experts inside and outside the U.S. government agreed that a key reason for the resurgence is a growing popular sympathy for the militants because an over-reliance on the use of force, especially airpower, by NATO has killed hundreds of civilians.
[Photo via Jamespon @ Flickr]
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