[llama hunter]

assuming this news is true, that an actual message was sent to Zarqawi by Bin Laden to take over US terrorist operations, it does signal the following:

Bin Laden now figures Iraq is a lost cause or why else encourage your most productive terrorist envoy to leave, [and that was in fact inherent in the last intercepted message, even Zarqawi knew that attacking Iraqis once they took over wasn't going to play well....not that he has stopped yet...because frankly Zarqawi in Iraq has done more to damage Al Queda than anything the US could have done, because more and more Muslims see Al Queda for the monsters they truly are]

it is especially odd since Bin Laden allegedly made a big production of naming Zarqawi his man in Iraq just a few months ago....


and/or that the leadership ranks are pretty thin and unproductive if the only option for Bin Laden is to take Zarqawi out of Iraq (because usually Binny likes to fight on many fronts)

[rdcorso]

I think Bin Laden is stuck between a rock and a hard place right now.Osama has been able to avoid being killed or captured with the help of officials in Pakistan who know exactly where he is.They are willing to provide cover for him as long as he doesn't commit any large acts of terror.If he attacks America on the scale of 9/11 he will lose any assistance and either be killed or turned over to the US.I think this is the reason why he has been trying to outsource attacks to others and allowing lower level terrorist to do whatever damage they can.He has been talking a lot about killing infidels but for some reason he hasn't been too active since 9/11.Is there any doubt whether he would attack us if he could?

[gogipper]

Agreed, Zarqawi has his hands full killing Shiites (which is getting harder and harder) and running from US and Iraqi Forces (attacks on US forces down 50%) and now he's supposed to spin around and attack the Great Satan? If not beaten, it is an astounding admission of weakness.