U.S. officials have reportedly confirmed that deadly bombings in the Syrian cities of Damascus (in December and January) and Aleppo (Friday) were the work of al Qaeda in Iraq, whose members were acting with authorization from al Qaeda central head and Osama bin Laden successor Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to McClatchy:

The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad’s charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad’s regime, which has responded with massive force against the uprising, staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster.

The international terrorist network’s presence in Syria also raises the possibility that Islamic extremists will try to hijack the uprising, which would seriously complicate efforts by the United States and its European and Arab partners to force Assad’s regime from power. On Friday, President Barack Obama repeated his call for Assad to step down, accusing his forces of “outrageous bloodshed.”

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U.S. officials have reportedly confirmed that deadly bombings in the Syrian cities of Damascus (in December and January) and Aleppo (Friday) were the work of al Qaeda in Iraq, whose members were acting with authorization from al Qaeda central head and Osama bin Laden successor Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to McClatchy:

The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad’s charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad’s regime, which has responded with massive force against the uprising, staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster.

The international terrorist network’s presence in Syria also raises the possibility that Islamic extremists will try to hijack the uprising, which would seriously complicate efforts by the United States and its European and Arab partners to force Assad’s regime from power. On Friday, President Barack Obama repeated his call for Assad to step down, accusing his forces of “outrageous bloodshed.”

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Peter Dow’s “no” to Taliban’s surrender terms. Afpak strategy for victory in war on terror. (YouTube)

CBS News: Divisions within Taliban make peace elusive

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made news Wednesday when he said the combat role for U.S. troops in Afghanistan could end next year instead of 2014. On Thursday, he took a step back — insisting U.S. forces will remain combat ready — even as they transition into their new role of training Afghan troops.

Another part of the U.S. strategy involves getting the Taliban to hold peace talks with the Afghan government. CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward spoke with some top Taliban representatives where they live in Pakistan.

They call Sami ul Haq the “Father of the Taliban,” one of Pakistan’s most well-known and hard-line Islamists.

Ward visited ul Haq at his religious school near the Afghan border. Many Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters studied there, earning it the nickname the “University of Jihad.”

Ul Haq said that top Taliban figures are receptive to the idea of peace talks, but that three key conditions must be met first: The Americans must leave Afghanistan, he told Ward. Secondly, Taliban leaders should be released from Guantonamo. The third demand is there should be no outside interference in Afghanistan.

It’s unlikely that American negotiators will accept these terms, though a release of some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay has been discussed.

While some elements of the Taliban’s leadership may be supportive of peace talks, there are clear signs that divisions exist within the group. Many of the younger, more militant foot soldiers insisting that they are not ready to stop fighting.

At a small guesthouse on the outskirts of Islamabad, CBS News had the rare chance to sit down with a young Taliban commander from Helmand province. For security reasons, he asked that his face be not shown.

“If these talks in Doha are successful and Taliban leaders tell you and your fighters to put down your arms, will you do it?” asked Ward.

“No, it will not happen,” he said. “And those who are talking to the political wing of the Taliban should understand that real peace is only possible by talking to the ground fighters.”

“So the bottom line is you’re not willing to compromise, you’re not willing to collaborate? Is there any chance of peace?”

“If the Afghan government announced tomorrow that strict Islamic law would be reinstated, we would accept that,” he said, “but those in power now will never go along with that.”

For the moment, there is a huge gulf between what the Taliban and their backers want and what America would be willing to accept.

So the Deans of Jihad have dictated terms to the West, the terms they propose of the West’s surrender to the Jihadis in the war on terror.

So what should the response of the West be? Should we surrender to the Jihadis, or should we fight to win?

This guy Sami ul Haq should be a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp along with his University of Jihad colleagues, his controllers from the Pakistani ISI and his financial backers from Saudi Arabia.

The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as “state sponsors of terrorism”.

There ought to be drone strikes on the University of Jihad. (Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, Pakistan)

We ought to seize control of Pakistani and Saudi TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West.

It just seems very poor tactics for our military to be risking life and limb in the minefields of Afghanistan yet at the strategic level our governments and businesses are still “trading with the enemy”.

As the Star Trek character Commander Scott might have said -

“It’s war, Captain but not as we know it.”

Republican Intelligence forum of the For Freedom Forums

Rice for President Yahoo Group

TEN YEARS HAVE passed since terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  In that period, America has fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried out hundreds armed drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen (among other locations), and conducted covert operations around the world, all in the name of what President George W.  Bush termed the “Global War on Terror.”  Terror plots and attempted attacks have been foiled, terrorist leaders have been killed or captured in massive numbers – including the world’s most wanted terrorist himself, Osama bin Laden.  All of this has combined, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “put al Qaeda on the path to defeat.”

Given all this, is it possible that America is actually losing the war on terror? In Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues not only that we are losing, but that we as a nation still fail to understand what kind of a war we are fighting, and what our enemies’ actual goals are.  This is a powerful indictment, and Gartenstein-Ross painstakingly lays it out in a book that is both sharply analytical and accessible to any audience.

A KEY PROBLEM with America’s attempt to wage a War on Terror while safeguarding itself from future attack, Gartenstein-Ross writes, is that our ignorance of the enemy we are facing has allowed us to pursue both goals in a profligate fashion that plays right into the hands of an enemy that sees America’s economy as the long-term target.  To understand the reasoning behind this, we must look to the Soviet Union.  Though myriad factors contributed to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., its collapse so shortly after its withdrawal from a decade-long quagmire in Afghanistan helped convince Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedeen that they had been the cause of its ultimate defeat.

Now, al Qaeda has taken this strategy of embroiling a much larger and wealthier enemy in a long and costly war of economic attrition and has aimed it at the United States, with no small measure of success gained over the last decade.  “Even though it has lost Osama bin Laden and its safe haven in Afghanistan,” the author writes, al Qaeda’s “fight against America is broader, and al Qaeda and its affiliates are key players in more regions than they were engaged in a decade ago…Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is shattered, it faces an almost unthinkable debt burden, and its policy makers have largely been consigned to arguing with each other on the sidelines while the country’s traditional allies…are overthrown or see their power erode” (p. 200).

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TEN YEARS HAVE passed since terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  In that period, America has fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried out hundreds armed drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen (among other locations), and conducted covert operations around the world, all in the name of what President George W.  Bush termed the “Global War on Terror.”  Terror plots and attempted attacks have been foiled, terrorist leaders have been killed or captured in massive numbers – including the world’s most wanted terrorist himself, Osama bin Laden.  All of this has combined, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “put al Qaeda on the path to defeat.”

Given all this, is it possible that America is actually losing the war on terror? In Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues not only that we are losing, but that we as a nation still fail to understand what kind of a war we are fighting, and what our enemies’ actual goals are.  This is a powerful indictment, and Gartenstein-Ross painstakingly lays it out in a book that is both sharply analytical and accessible to any audience.

A KEY PROBLEM with America’s attempt to wage a War on Terror while safeguarding itself from future attack, Gartenstein-Ross writes, is that our ignorance of the enemy we are facing has allowed us to pursue both goals in a profligate fashion that plays right into the hands of an enemy that sees America’s economy as the long-term target.  To understand the reasoning behind this, we must look to the Soviet Union.  Though myriad factors contributed to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., its collapse so shortly after its withdrawal from a decade-long quagmire in Afghanistan helped convince Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedeen that they had been the cause of its ultimate defeat.

Now, al Qaeda has taken this strategy of embroiling a much larger and wealthier enemy in a long and costly war of economic attrition and has aimed it at the United States, with no small measure of success gained over the last decade.  “Even though it has lost Osama bin Laden and its safe haven in Afghanistan,” the author writes, al Qaeda’s “fight against America is broader, and al Qaeda and its affiliates are key players in more regions than they were engaged in a decade ago…Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is shattered, it faces an almost unthinkable debt burden, and its policy makers have largely been consigned to arguing with each other on the sidelines while the country’s traditional allies…are overthrown or see their power erode” (p. 200).

Read More →

Quote: AllGov

Lloyd’s Sues Members of Saudi Royal Family for Funding Al-Qaeda in 9/11 Attacks
Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Prince Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud

Leaders of Saudi Arabia are being sued by Lloyd’s insurance for playing a key role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Lloyd’s has paid more than $215 million in claims filed by families of those killed in the attacks, and wants Saudi leaders to reimburse the company.

As far as the insurer is concerned, 9/11 never would have happened without “the sponsorship” of Saudi Arabia, which provided al-Qaeda with the means “to conceive, plan and execute the September 11th Attacks,” says the Lloyd’s lawsuit.

In addition to the Saudi government, defendants in the case are the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo and Chechnya (SJRC), the Saudi Red Crescent Society, National Commercial Bank, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Company, Prince Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Suleiman Abdel Aziz Al Rajhi (CEO of al Rajhi Bank), and Yassin Al Qadi (an employee of al Rajhi Bank and founder of the Muwaffaq Foundation). Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud is currently the Governor of Riyadh Province.

The SJRC is included because, according to Lloyd’s, the organization between 1998 and 2000 diverted more than $74 million to al-Qaeda members and loyalists. At that time the committee “was under the supervision and control of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz.”

Peter Dow of Rice for President and the For Freedom Forums comments.

I’ll applaud Lloyd’s and salute their coat of arms. Nice one.

The Arms of Lloyd’s
LLOYD’S website

Now wouldn’t it be refreshing to see Western leaders squaring up to the Saudi royals with that kind of backbone instead of grovelling down to make arms deals with them?

I posted the above in the US Message board and here is a part of the debate there that followed.

Quote: High_Gravity

Hmm I wonder how far this will really go, those Saudis have A LOT of oil money and could probably pay a pretty outrageous price to settle this out of court.

Yes you are right because if the Saudis admit liability and pay what is small change for them to settle this Lloyd’s claim in court then everyone else with a claim of loss following 9/11 – so that is not just losses suffered on 9/11 but arguably all those who lost loved-ones in Afghanistan, which was a war on terror consequential after 9/11 (possibly the Iraq war too) – also will find it much easier to prove their claim against the Saudis.

Add up the entire US and allied military and diplomatic service costs for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, compensation for those serving there who were killed and injured, so that’s life time support for all the families of the killed, plus compensation for loss of earnings and quality of life losses for all those injured ..

That adds up into the trillions of dollars, serious money which amounts to quite a boost to the western economies in fact.

Hence why I suspect you are right that the Saudis will want to settle this out of court with no admission of liability.

It occurs to me that Lloyds of London insurers are not as well resourced as say the CIA and MI6 intelligence services. It seems to me that our intelligence services should have got around to blaming the Saudis for funding this before Lloyd’s did.

If they did, if they informed US presidents Bush and Obama, why is it business as usual with the Saudis?

Just yesterday another arms deal between the US and Saudi Arabia was announced, 50 thousand American jobs saved apparently. Presumably this is why US presidents are making nice with the backstabbing Saudi royals, to keep the business deals coming?

It just looks wrong when US presidents make nice with our enemies.

The then US President George W. Bush (L) and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, brother of King Abdullah, watch a traditional celebration dance outside the Al Murabba Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 15, 2008.

I think the West should stop turning the other cheek and instead man-up and confiscate the Saudi oil fields to pay our war costs for the war they started by funding Al Qaeda!

Quote: High_Gravity

The Saudis have $10 trillion in US Banks and own numerous properties and businesses here, its because of this that our government is very leery to stop doing business with them. Like you said in previous posts though, in reality though the Saudis are no friends to the us. The textbooks that preach firey Anti American and Anti Western hatred in the madrassas in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and elsewhere are all printed out in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia produced the most foreign fighters to fight against our troops in Iraq not to mention most of the 9/11 hijackers were from the Kingdom. I personally would like to see the US start doing less and less business with the Saudis and the other Middle Eastern countries, but I don’t know how to even begin that process when we have so many ties and agreements with them.

Well a good start would be confiscating that $10 trillion to distribute to compensate US 9/11 victims and war on terror casualties.

The UK and other countries who have incurred jihadi terrorism or war on terror costs should do the same. (Actually I am a republican so I always need to add that the UK should be overthrown and British republics do whatever it is that the UK should be doing)

Now I haven’t really worked out the figures as to whether $10 trillion would cover all American costs.

If it does, if UK costs are covered by what we can confiscate of what the Saudis have invested in Britain and other countries get compensated this way, then fine, especially if the Saudis stop funding new jihadi terrorism, maybe that will be that, though I still think we should support a republican democratic revolution in Saudi Arabia.

Now supposing $10 trillion of Saudi assets invested in the US doesn’t compensate sufficiently. Supposing the fair compensation figure is more like $100 trillion all told.

Then the US, with allied backing, presents the Saudis with an ultimatum – you pay us X% (where “X” is maybe 50%, 75% or 90% depending on how much of a hurry we are in to get compensated) of all the taxes you collect from the Arabian oil industry in Saudi Arabia until such time as you have paid off your debt, or else.

The “or else” could be a Western military invasion of Saudi Arabia to seize the Arabian oil fields.

Such a war would not be easy as the Iraq war demonstrated and the war aims could be thwarted initially because the Saudis would probably sabotage the oil wells, like Saddam did, by the time our military took the oil fields but eventually the fires would be put out and the oil wells restored to working order and at that later time we’d start getting 100% of all the taxes and the percentage of that we gave to the Arabs would not go through the Saudi state – we’d fund Arabian democrats and republicans instead – so the Saudi kingdom would be bankrupt and finished as a viable entity. The Saudi royal family would be finished as a ruling class apart from ruling their camels.

At least this time there would be no argument about whether such an “or else” war would be a “war for oil” because it honestly would be.

From the Republican Intelligence forum in For Freedom Forums