The CIA says that Osama Bin Laden is probably hiding somewhere in northwest Pakistan, making him stranded in the mountains and not involved in the daily operations of the terror organization that the US still considers as the most stubborn threat to security. Bin Laden, though, seems not crucial to the al-Qaeda expansion, anyway. Even without Bin Laden’s direct leadership, al-Qaeda continues to spread in Africa, Middle East, Yemen, and Pakistan. This organization’s tentacles just seem to multiply. Any radical Islamist organization seems to have a connection, in one way or another, with al-Qaeda. On the other hand, the CIA reports that al-Qaeda activities have been tempered in the Philippines, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
There have been allegations throughout the years following 9/11 that al-Qaeda is not the grand terror infrastructure that it’s being promoted to be. While it sows terror, it is not a massively organized global organization. It is merely a smattering of terror cells found in places where radical Islamists breed. These places are found to be poor in political structure and economic conditions. It’s been said that al-Qaeda has always existed where they can get their way. It can neither be denied, of course, that major militant groups such as the Taliban and JI have connections to al-Qaeda. All these in spite of the fact that the world had started to hear the name al-Qaeda only after that fateful day called 9/11.
On the other hand, Osama Bin Laden has been portrayed as the nominal head of this purported global terror organization. Logic begs to suspect this. How can someone who has been hiding in the remote jungles be operating a global organization? And with all the sophisticated surveillance and intelligence tools of the US and its CIA, how come they have not intercepted whatever communication methods Bin Laden had been using to operate this group?
Two things happen to us, thus. One, we come to the conclusion that the whole thing is suspect and attacks our credulity so much so that it’s inevitable to issue a statement such as Bin Laden is now cut off from al-Qaeda’s day-to-day operations. And two, we have been watching too many American spy thrillers.
Via BBC
