Posted on 07/11/2007 1:36:35 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has become entrenched in a remote corner of Pakistan, and the United States fears a military strike could spawn new militant activity in the country, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
Top intelligence analysts, appearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said the militant network led by Osama bin Laden has become increasingly active in ungoverned sections of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border, where bin Laden himself is believed to be protected by local tribal leaders.
"They seem to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan. We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications," said John Kringen, the CIA's director of intelligence.
Kringen and two other intelligence officials testified about global security threats facing the United States amid concerns about a potential new al Qaeda threat on U.S. soil following attempted attacks in Britain.
Al Qaeda remains the leading terrorist threat against the United States nearly six years after its members were driven from bases in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
American officials warned in January that al Qaeda leaders had regrouped at camps in Pakistan, leading some political leaders to urge U.S. military action against the militant network's camps if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf failed to act on his own.
"Sooner or later you have to quit permitting them to have a safe haven there. At the end of the day, when we have had success, it's when you've been able to get them worried about who was informing on them, get them worried about who was coming after them," Kringen said.
U.S. officials have avoided action that could harm Musharraf, whom officials described as a key U.S. ally who has aided in the capture of many al Qaeda members.
A secret 2005 mission to capture senior al Qaeda members in Pakistan's tribal areas was aborted at the last moment when Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to a recent New York Times report.
But Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, warned that U.S. intervention could stir into action Islamist militants currently involved in struggles against India over Kashmir.
"It is not too great an exaggeration to say there is some risk of turning a problem in northwest Pakistan into the problem of all of Pakistan," he said.
Musharraf government's weathered eight days of battles against Islamist militants from the Red Mosque in Islamabad where one cleric and 50 militants died in fighting that finally ended on Wednesday.
Al Qaeda is planning for the future. They have their eyes on Pakistan's nukes. I'm sure they have already infiltrated Pakistan's security establishment.
“Al Qaeda entrenched in Pakistan, U.S. officials say”
They are entrenched in the DC beltway too!!!
LLS
Truer words have NEVER been posted on FR. You are a sage with advice that any thinking American should embrace!
LLS
Perfect!
Nicely done.
Sing it brother!!! TRUTH!!!
LLS
AQ has no major cities to bomb but I wouldn’t be against bombing villages that give them shelter.
I know this idea sounds crazy, and I haven’t considered the fallout problems, etc., but really, are we getting any closer to eliminating this cancer from our world using current, politically correct, methods?
I don’t think so. Everywhere I turned this morning, the news was about the threat of spectacular Al-Qaeda attacks in the United States expected this summer. Don’t even get me started on the fact that we allow thousands of jihadists to roam freely in our country plotting their mass murder! But they’re taking their orders from the big guys hiding out in those REMOTE areas of Pakistan. Let’s go in there and turn the entire place into an ocean of radioactive sand!
The way we’re going about this “War on Terror” is going to get us all killed!
The only way we’re going to win this thing is to annihilate the enemy, ALL of them, regardless of where they are hiding.
Do we need the Pak Gov't to do more? Yes (where they can). But cutting the funding they need to even be adequate at the jobs we need them to do....would serve no benefit to us (in the big picture)....Which the Dem's are calling for today.
The situation sucks. Plain and simple. Though the concept of saying to hell with it....come hell or high-water we're coming in to drag UBL and Zawahiri out is a mindset at times I could really agree with....(though even that doesn't mean we'd catch the SOB in any short time period). Understand Zarqawi survived in Iraq over 3 years while we had a 140,000 + U.S. soldiers on the ground there (and the support of the majority of the people).
We wouldn't have the support of 5% of the people in these border regions of Pak
Most people simply cannot comprehend the brutal terrain within this region. It has every kind of landscape from snow-capped Mtns to desert......Running sustained operations are a nightmare and even then, there are fewer units capable of doing so effectively. All the eyes in the sky modern-day bells and whistles are wonderful....but more often then not they are for d*ck in this part of the world.
HUMINT, HUMINT, HUMINT is the key......How we go about gathering that HUMINT is where there is honest room for debate.
In the world of modern warfare, is there really such a thing as a “Remote” location?
Yes.
BINGO!
The mass media's,
or whomever really controls such things,
decision/experiment to cease SHOWING the events from that fateful day to the American People has accomplished what seems to not only be the rewriting of American history but also pivotal in the shaping of Her current events and policy.
It’s even worse. It’s Saudi princes funding a good deal of them in Pakistan. Where do you think the tribal ‘leaders’ get the bribe money paid to the Pakistani INS to hlpe keep the military at bay? The USA is funding the Pakistani military whose job is to destroy Bin Laden and ilk and Saudi fund the ilk. If Bush really had balls he would meet with King Fahd and outright put an ultimatum to him. Tell him that any individual whether a royal prince or dirty peasant that funds Al Queda in Pakistan gets the death sentence. The funding would dry up overnight and then you could focus on the next sphincter of islamic society, Iran. Bush won’t do this, they have been ‘friends’ with the royal family for decades and this would be insensitive of him of course. If done, their would be pain at the pump as the their would be coups within the Saudi royal family. Lets all just ignore the short term pain and accept the ruination of the world as it will look ten years from now. It’s cowardice and selfishness. The ones at the top know they will survive and still live very comfortably while you and I fry.
The rumor is some of those battlefield nukes Bush requested in 2002 could be made available. Tiny fallout area too and you can blanket and area with them to get all the vaporization effects without pissing off the other countries or even major population areas of civilian areas in Pakistan. Although, then again most Pakistanis hate the USA and support the jihad at large...
I say if you aren’t going to use your might to it’s fullest, dismantle it. Either put up, or shut up.
And you know what they are saying about this new information, right? If we hadn’t gone to Iraq, we could have been focusing on this. I have heard it several times tonight.
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