Time to crash. See ya all tomorrow!
A quick review: the CIA gets intel that Zawahiri and several high-level AQ leaders will meet to discuss plans for a spring offensive in Afghanistan in a compound in Damadola. In at least two separate attacks, Hellfire missiles blow up three of the buildings in the compound, killing a number of people. At first, the Pakistanis tell the US that all of the dead were civilians, a family of jewelers -- but we find out that at least five bodies got immediately carted away by "foreigners" before anyone could get a chance to see them. We then find out that at least three of the dead were indeed high-level AQ operatives ... who showed up even after Zawahiri decided not to come?
Why would they show up to a planning meeting if the decision-maker had canceled out?
And were the three people identified as having been killed really so important that their bodies could not be left behind for identification?
Now, a couple of weeks afterward, we have a tape of Zawahiri recalling martyrs by name, but not those who died in Damadola, and giving a poetry reading extolling the virtues of martyrdom by referencing battles long since past. It sounds quite a bit like an Islamist giving Zawahiri an opportunity to eulogize himself.
Posted by Captain Ed at January 20, 2006 09:07 PM