Quote:
If confirmed, though, Atiyah’s icing deprives al-Qaida of a longtime trusted member at a time of serious organizational flux. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta boasted in July that the U.S. was merely 10 or 20 dead terrorists away from defeating al-Qaida — a claim that seemed overblown. But with Atiyah’s apparent death, not everyone’s so quick to dismiss Panetta.
“With the death of Bin Laden, Kashmiri, and Atiyah in rapid succession,” McCants said, “al-Qaida Central is more vulnerable to collapse than at any point in its history.”
I tend to agree with this, and when it happens (not if) DOD will be struggling to shift from a GWOT strategy to a more appropriate strategy for the 21st Century.
Quote:
Atiyah had told his boss that this U.S. "intelligence war," as bin Laden had called it, had made it nearly impossible for al-Qaeda to move, communicate, recruit or train in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The threat to AQ isn't U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan, but rather the precise and quiet intelligence war. No doubt that our presence in Afghanistan enables that intelligence war to some extent, but I'm currently under the belief that downsizing conventional combat forces in Afghanistan will have little impact on AQ one way or the other. It will be hard for them to claim a victory when they're closer and closer to irrelevant.