Al-Qaeda is dwindling in Afghanistan and Iraq

From The Daily Star of Lebanon.

The most interesting discovery during a visit to Jalalabad, where Osama bin Laden planted his flag in 1996, is that Al-Qaeda seems to have all but disappeared. The group is on the run, too, in Iraq, and that raises some interesting questions about how to pursue this terrorist enemy in the future.

No only is Al Qaeda's presence reduced in the Jalalabad, it is also in the north, east, and southern part of Afghanistan. Now, insurgents in Afghanistan are a loose collection of insurgent groups, mostly linked to historic warlords, but not a centrally controlled organization. In Iraq, we see much of the same.

Traveling in Iraq this year, I've heard similar accounts of Al-Qaeda's demise there. That stems from two factors: the revolt by Sunni tribal leaders against Al-Qaeda's brutal intimidation; and the relentless hunt for its operatives by US Special Forces. As the flow of human and technical intelligence improves and the US learns to fuse it for quick use by soldiers on the ground, the anti-terrorist rollback accelerates.

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