Al Qaeda Offers Another Video That Speaks Volumes About Their Weakness

Al Qaeda in Iraq offered up another video today that speaks far more about the weakness of the organization that it's strengths. There was an absurd claim that of 12,000 members, when all of the best intelligence estimates believe that no more than 500 Iraqi members and 500 foreign fighters are aligned with Al Qaeda in Iraq. That puts the Al Qaeda claim pretty far from accepted reality. It is the Shiite and Suuni militia groups that have members that can run into the tens of thousands per organization that are the real cause of most Iraqi violence, mainly of a sectarian nature in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq now seems down to accepting responsibility for violence it has no part in. That's pretty pathetic.

And as another sign of weakness, senior Al Qaeda members are leaving Afghanistan for their native lands. While NATO has their hands tied up with a serious struggle, likely Al Qaeda is losing enough senior members with some real skills so they are better needed in other areas to recruit, rather than face eventual death at the hands of NATO forces. This also doesn't speak well for this organization.

But at the same time American and European intelligence should be concerned that this organization could attempt to pull off something dramatic to prove that they are still relevant as far as terrorist organizations go. There is little doubt that as many as 800 million of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are antiU.S. or antiwestern to some degree, but there is great doubt that Al Qaeda represents very many of these Muslims.

Al Qaeda seems stuck in supporting low budget attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes using the same old weapons caputured from the Soviets in the war with them in Afghanistan in the 1980's, using old fighters from this war. Sending out a VHS to the media is a really low budget way to prove that they are still around, when Shiite and Sunni miltia organization violence is getting all the attention in Iraq, and Al Qaeda in Iraq is increasingly only a very minor player in Iraqi violence. When Al Qaeda hits the skids, VHS videos always seem to follow. It's down to that for this organization, which certainly proves that some progress has been made against this ruthless organization of cold blooded killers and disregard for life.