perfidy

According to the World Tribune US intelligence estimates that over 70% of Al Qaida has been neutralized.

"The Al Qaida of the 9/11 period is under catastrophic stress," State Department counter-terrorism coordinator Cofer Black said. "They are being hunted down, their days are numbered."

Black's assertion, made in an interview with the London-based British Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday, is based on U.S. intelligence community estimates that about 70 percent of Al Qaida has been neutralized, officials said.

Saudi officials agreed with the U.S. assessment and said the kingdom has made significant gains against Al Qaida, Middle East Newsline reported. They said Al Qaida leaders have been arrested and training camps have been discovered.

U.S. officials said Al Qaida has been rapidly losing its attack capabilities and was relying increasingly on smaller Islamic groups based in Southeast Asia and North Africa. The officials said thousands of Al Qaida operatives have been captured, killed or neutralized, with cells eliminated even in such strongholds as Kuwait and Yemen.

With the capture of Saddam, many resources have eben transferred back to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Rumors of his capture were floating around yesterday, including over at the Northeast Intelligence Network. As the situation in Iraq settles down somewhat over the coming months, more resources will be shifted to the hunt for Al Qaida, and I think that we'll see more victories on that front.

Officials said Al Qaida would continue as a much weaker organization and would focus largely on Saudi Arabia, the Horn of Africa while seeking to consolidate under the protection of Iran. They envision attacks being financed rather than carried out by Bin Laden.

The loss of veteran insurgency operatives has reduced the lethality of operations, officials said. Another factor has been the lack of success by Al Qaida to establish and sustain cells in many Western countries.

"The next group of concern would be a generation younger," Black said. "They're influenced by what they see on TV; they are influenced by misrepresentation of the facts. They seem to be long on radicalism and comparatively short on training."

This is substantial progress, but we need to focus on other terrorist groups, and find more ways to put pressure on state sponsors of terror. My earlier post on hezbollah speaks to both of these concerns.