Archive for the ‘Al-Qaeda’ Category
U.S. terrorism report finds Al Qaeda attacks rose in Pakistan – Los Angeles Times
Posted on: May 1, 2008
The State Department’s annual report says the group killed four times as many people last year from its haven in a tribal area.
Al Qaeda used a haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas to double the number of attacks in that country and kill four times as many people there in 2007, says a State Department report to Congress released Wednesday.
At a news briefing, Ambassador Dell L. Dailey, the State Department’s top counter-terrorism official, stopped short of blaming Pakistan for the increase and said the terrorist network was “weaker now than it was at the 9/11 time frame.”
The annual terrorism report itself, however, says that a primary reason for the terrorist network’s resurgence is a much-criticized cease-fire last year between the Pakistani federal government and tribal leaders beyond its authority near the border with Afghanistan. The agreement enabled Al Qaeda to more freely travel, train and plan attacks around the world, the report says.
Overall, there were nearly the same number of terrorist attacks worldwide in 2007 as the year before — about 14,500. But many more people were killed, especially as the number of suicide bombers rose, says the 312-page report, which is required by Congress and compiled using statistics from the National Counterterrorism Center.
Suicide bombings worldwide were up about 50%. Attackers have shifted their tactics, more often traveling on foot and using explosives-laden backpacks to strike in crowded areas rather than relying on vehicles that could be deterred by heightened security.
“I think it’s a fair statement that around the globe people are getting increasingly efficient at killing other people,” said Russell E. Travers, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, at the news briefing.
One such attack in December in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, killed at least 20 people, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she campaigned for elections.
Overall, an estimated 22,685 people were killed in terrorist attacks around the world in 2007, a 9% increase from 2006. The number of injured increased 15%, to 44,310, the report says. The numbers do not include military personnel on active duty or anyone working in an official capacity on behalf of the U.S. government.
As in previous years, the majority of terrorist attacks chronicled in the report occurred in Iraq. The number there dipped slightly in the last year, but still accounted for 60% of worldwide terrorism fatalities, including 17 of the 19 Americans killed, the report says. Two other Americans were killed in Afghanistan.
The report is considered to be the U.S. government’s benchmark in objective data on terrorist attacks, with some analysis on trends included to inform Congress and other policymakers, the American public and U.S. allies.
Al-Qaeda leader al-Masri ‘dead’
Posted on: April 9, 2008
- In: al-Masri | Al-Qaeda | assassination | dead | leader | Troops | U.S
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Abu Obaidah al-Masri, the militant chief believed to be a senior planner of al-Qaeda’s attacks in Afghanistan, has died, US intelligence sources say. They said they believed Masri, a major operational figure within al-Qaeda linked to attacks in the UK and elsewhere, died of “natural causes”. “The sense is that he is dead,” a US official said. A US official told the BBC that Masri had apparently died within the last two months, probably of hepatitis. The Egyptian-born militant was described by both US and British counter-terrorism officials as head of external operations for al-Qaeda’s core leadership, says the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner. Village attacks A former military commander in Afghanistan, Masri is believed to have directed attacks on US-led forces after the Taleban were ousted in 2001, before turning his attention to high-impact attacks on Western populations. Thought to have been hiding out in Pakistan’s tribal areas before he died, counter-terrorism officials believe Masri was so important to al-Qaeda that his successor has yet to be appointed, our correspondent adds. He was such a mysterious figure that even his real name was a carefully veiled secret – Abu Obaidah al-Masri is an Arabic nom de guerre meaning “Father of Obaidah the Egyptian”. Masri had escaped at least two assassination attempts in the past. Pakistani officials reported he had been killed in a 2006 missile strike on a Pakistani village near the Afghan border, only to say later that he had not been in the village at the time. Another missile attack on a different Pakistani village later in 2006 also missed its target. |
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