Al Qaeda returns? UN panel warns of new bin Laden threat
Fox News reports that as the Islamic State is forced from its former strongholds, a U.N. panel is warning the next terror threat in the region could come, once again, from Al Qaeda — led by the son of Usama bin Laden, Hamza bin Laden.
The UN Report delivered to the Security Council and released earlier this week, included disquieting conclusions about both the Isis and Al Qaeda terror networks.
The report found that while ISIS had been defeated militarily in Iraq and most of Syria, it rallied in early 2018, and still had approximately 20,000-30,000 members in the two countries.
The U.S.-led coalition in the region racked up numerous military wins against the group in 2017 and helped reduce its territory to mere pockets of Syria.
At the State of the Union address this year, President Trump declared victory: “I’m proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 100 percent of the territory just recently held by these killers in Iraq and in Syria.”
The U.N. report found ISIS, though, is in the process of moving from “a proto-State network to a covert network” that continues to threaten other countries, and its leadership is still intact under Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
Yet the report also raised significant concerns about Al Qaeda, which fell into the background amid the international attention on ISIS and its brutal tactics, particularly after the death of Usama bin Laden in 2011.
The report found that Al Qaeda is still a global network showing resilience, and it is stronger than ISIS in places like Somalia, Yemen and South Asia — and its leadership in Iran has grown more prominent.
Further, Hamza bin Laden has “continued to emerge as a leadership figure in Al Qaeda,” the report said.
“Al Qaeda’s leadership demonstrates strategic patience and its regional affiliates exercise good tactical judgment, embedding themselves in local issues and becoming players,” it said.
While the U.N. said there is little evidence as yet of a direct global threat from Al Qaeda, “improved leadership and enhanced communication will probably increase the threat over time, as will any rise in the tendency, already visible in some regions, of ISIL supporters to join Al Qaeda.”
Al Qaeda is like a hydra- lop off one head and another appears. It needs to be dealt with quickly and severely, and a good starting point would be Hamza bin Laden.
Category: Terror War
I think maybe a visit from some friendly men would be a starting place. Have a coffee, a gnosh, a bullet in the eye. You know friendly stuff!
Pretty sure you cannot 100% kill a terrorist network without killing all of them and all of their supporters. About all you can do is make continuing operations so untenable they stop trying.
Oh, well… it did seem too good to be true… but there were those pictures and stuff, and the body in a bag at sea… and -well, it was too good to be true, wasn’t it?
Yo Hamza,
Frank Zappa just called and he wants his look back … right NOW!
MCPO OUT!
Master Chief,
I was thinking he was going for the Milli Vanilli look. http://static.spin.com/files/140109-milli-vanilli-opera.jpg
UBL is rolling over in his watery grave (courtesy of the U.S. Navy).
V/r
IS1
looks like a Flash Gordon reject to me….
Tactical Members Only jacket???
So, that’s what happened to Vlad the Impaler!
probably Ingrid, the impaled…over and over…
His favorite day is Thursday…but he is still looking for his very own Mr. Tiny.
Only way to stop the stupid
Is to take the whole family out
Biometrics. It’s the wave of the future!
Captain America has been battling Hydra since the ’60s with no end in sight. So I’m sure Hydra-ISIS is going to be just as persistent.
Do you guys remember how Heracles solved the problem with the Hydra? We should borrow from that.
Napalm!
and repeat as needed! No one has had any success in this region in history, EVER. Us, The USSR, going back thru Alexander and the Persians. GTFO. I just hope that if we are still going to be there in 2118, we can come up with the same level of dedicated troops we’ve had serving for the last 17 years.
NUKE ’em till they glow!!!
Earth-shattering nuclear mines.
If we leave Afghanistan before 2118 we should probably not be surprised when that corrupt government falls almost immediately and the Taliban either re-takes the nation or works in concert with AQ to get it back.
The overall lack of national identity in that shithole makes it very susceptible to never being able to stand on its own.
In places where the government is already on the ropes or was never really capable of standing on its own like Yemen and Somalia AQ has a fairly easy time becoming powerful.
Even Mexico teeters on the edge of becoming a narco state which would make it easy pickings for a terrorist entity to get far closer to the heart of the great Satan.
We can’t prop the whole fucking world up, at some point we will need to decide how we intend to proceed. I prefer the Roman Oderint Dum Metuant methodology, but I doubt our fellow Americans have the stomach for that…I fear we will follow the European model and try and teach our people that some of them being mowed down by cars, stabbed, or blown up is just an every day facet of life.
Asscanistan isn’t called “The Graveyard of Empires” for nothing!
One of the three Muskateers wearing a motorcycle jacket. The three “Mesquiteers” rode B western horses
Magua asks why this forked-tongue camel herder is still alive. Magua says he should have his still-beating heart ripped from his chest and fed to the dogs to end his line forever…
Magua IS smiling, fucko.
I wonder how many young boys Osama bin Laden raped before he forced himself on a woman … with the above result …
The apple does not fall far THAT tree.
Took about forever to find OBL, in part due to the pussification of a president. Now we have one with a set, maybe we can find and burn this fucker, HazMat, hopefully this year. KILL. THEM. DEAD. until any left go home to their goats and camels.
It would seem this is one area where we can take a page from the muzzie playbook… we should have wiped out his entire line, not just him…
Scorched earth method.
Works for me.
After it’s good and scorched, bulldoze it and open a Chick-fil-A.
That’ll learn ‘em.
I was a “part-time patriot” Army reservist activated to serve with Combined Joint Task Force 82 (followed by 101) in Kabul Province from 2010-2011. I have a couple of lasting memories from that rotation. Part of my job was to distribute small battery/solar/wind-up hand held radios so the indigenous could listen to our local Army PSYOP radio station (affectionately dubbed WIED). In a nearby village, probably not more than 12 miles from downtown Kabul, the nation’s capital, I met an elderly man. He asked my interpreter if I was a German soldier even though he could plainly see my subdued American flag and US Army tape. We were already nine years into our venture at that point but a local “leader” was still confused by the “coalition presence.”
Another part of my job was to “mentor” some military mullahs (chaplains) in an Afghan National Army corps’ Religious & Cultural Affairs section. One Lt Col mullah had warred against the Soviets in the 1980s as a young freedom fighter. He told me that his greatest enemy was his Maj General corps commander who had fled Afghanistan when the Russians invaded. The mullah said that once the Americans left his country his new war would begin with the killing of that general. And I believed him.
As America nears its 17th year in AFG the 21st century version of “The Great Game” plays out while illiteracy and tribalism prevail.
My favorite solution
‘I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.’
The dude pictured isn’t Hamza Bin Laden; it’s Omar. He’s a lot older and lives in the UK.
Don’t forget the Taliban! It’s back too.
Al Queda, ISIS, Taliban, etc. They are symptoms, not the disease. Kill all the individuals you want, more will come.