AP---Many in terrorists' 'next generation' dead

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_re_eu/the_next_generation;_ylt=AoBPqAKR3nqjoGj9u4CEe4Cs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b3JuZGZhBHNlYwM3MjE-

Many in terrorists' 'next generation' dead

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 49 minutes ago

MADRID, Spain - They rose up quickly to take up
Osama bin Laden's call for jihad, ruthless men in their 20s and 30s heralded as the next generation of global terror.


Two years later, 40 percent are dead, targets of a worldwide crackdown that claimed its biggest victory with the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's front man in
Iraq.

Manhunts in Asia, Africa and Europe have pushed most of the rest deep underground — finding refuge in wartorn Somalia or the jungles of the southern Philippines. While there are still recruits ready to take up al-Qaida's call to arms, analysts say the newcomers have fewer connections than the men they are replacing, less training and sparser resources.

"There are more people popping up than are being put away," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College. "But the question is whether the new ones have the fortitude to take up the mantle and carry the struggle forward. I don't see that they have."

A 2004 Associated Press analysis named a dozen young terror suspects as front-line leaders, their hands stained with the blood of attacks from Bali to Baghdad, Casablanca to Madrid......

betrothed girls...he who never thought he could afford another wife might now have a chance. Ahh, freedom on the march...

BIG LOVE...Middle Eastern style.

they pull that number out of their a**. There are millions of Islamic men in the ME. 40% of all males 20-40? I don't think so. :eyes:

just like the Bush administration.

George Bush's brute force only reaction to terror has alienated and radicalized
the Arab and Muslim world. America's efforts to spread "freedom" have been
cynical exercises in realpolitik that have given democracy a bad name
in the Middle East.

The Jihadis have suffered a decline in quality. That's great, but the U.S.
isn't coming out of this unscathed either. The U.S. military is stretched
thin and bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq. U.S. international influence and
credibility have also suffered. Islamists now rule Iraq and are advancing
politically all over the Middle East.

A common goal of terror is to promote an overreaction and paranoia by victims'
governments. On that point, Osama bin Laden has played George Bush like a fiddle.
His obsession with swatting mosquitoes, has ignored the bigger political and
ideological battle.

Should one feel sorry for the dwindling number of struggling, noble young terrorists? What's your point?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF09Ak02.html

Jun 9, 2006


Bin Laden's jihadi spring
By Michael Scheuer

Over the past two years, US and other Western commentators have concluded that Osama bin Laden is largely irrelevant as the leader of the worldwide Sunni insurgency. Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, for example, has said that "by now it is surely clear that al-Qaeda can produce videotapes but not terrorism ... And the bad guys are losing."

SNIP


Islamist networks established to recruit Muslims to fight US-led forces in Iraq, for example, have been found in France, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere. European intelligence officers have said that up to 1,000 European Muslims have been sent to fight in Iraq; British officials claim that up to 150 Muslims from the UK alone have gone to Iraq.

In these cases, Europe-born Muslims - some third-generation - and local converts have been attracted and motivated by the Iraqi jihad, a cause that for Islamists pivots on the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, and not on opposition to elections, democracy and liberty. They will return home, moreover, with significant military skills and imbued with the jihadi spirit. <4>

Taken at his own word, then, it seems likely that bin Laden is quite pleased with where he and al-Qaeda stand a decade after declaring war. This is not to say that US military and intelligence forces have not hurt al-Qaeda; they have, although not to the catastrophic extent some claim.

It is to say, however, that bin Laden's main goal of using his words, al-Qaeda's actions and a tight focus on what the US does in the Islamic world to instigate Muslims to join the anti-US jihad has not only found traction, but is increasingly successful worldwide.

Today, the US and Europe are not only confronted by a still undefeated al-Qaeda, but by an increasing number of Muslims in their own populations who - inspired and religiously agitated by bin Laden - are prepared to pick up arms and spend their lives to act on that inspiration.

Notes
1. "Exclusive Transcript of Previously Unaired Interview with Osama bin Laden", Qoqaz (Internet), May 23, 2002.
2. "Exposing the New Crusader War - Osama bin Laden - February 2003", Waaqiah (Internet), February 14, 2003.
3. "Interview with Osama bin Laden", Ummat, September 28, 2001.
4. Sydney Morning Herald, January 7; BBC News, January 12; Washington Post, February 18; The Sunday Times, June 4.

Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He served as the chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the once-anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.

Already we are seeing the retiring, burkahed, purdah-bound Palestinian women partaking in the Intifada... and remember what Kipling said about the women of Afghanistan!

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."


The Young British Soldier


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