Scott's Random Thought for the Day (Terrorism)



I think Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Last week there was a series of suicide bombings in Amman, the capital of Jordan. All evidence is pointing to the fact that the blasts were planned by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the head of "Al-Qaida in Iraq." At first look it seems odd that guy who's supposed be fighting the U.S. in Iraq would suddenly decide to blow up hotels in Jordan, but a little history clears things up.

Both al Zarqawi and Bin Laden fought the Soviets in Afganistan, and when the Soviet puppet government fell both founded terrorist movements in lawless vacuum that followed. However, they had very different goals. Bin Laden was focused on overthrowing the Saudi royal family, and after he saw how the House of Saud was in bed with the United States during the Gulf War he widened his goals. Al Zarqawi has always wanted to overthrow the Jordanian royal family. Both men ran camps for recruiting and training Muslim youths as terrorists, but they did not work together. In fact, intelligence officials think that at one point actual shooting broke out between the two camps.

Then comes Gulf War II. Both Bin Laden and al Zarqawi flee Afghanistan ahead of the U.S. forces, with Bin Laden apparently hiding in Pakistan while al Zarqawi goes to northern Iraq, the part Hussein doesn't control.

(Colin Powell used al Zarqawi's presence in Iraq to tie Hussein to Al-Qaida in the infamous U.N. presentation, though even at the time most intelligence analysts thought his argument was ridiculous. First of all, al Zarqawi wasn't part of Al-Qaida at the time, and secondly Powell claimed Hussein had allowed al Zarqawi to recuperate at a Bagdad hospital after he lost a leg. As it turns out, al Zarqawi still has both legs. You know our intelligence gathering is in trouble when we don't know how many legs the people we are looking for have.)

As the insurgency ramped up al Zarqawi went from working with a group that was targeting the Kurds to the more high profile activities opposing the U.S. directly. He dubbed himself the head of "Al Queda in Iraq" and pledged allegiance to his old rival Bin Laden.

But now al Zarqawi has apparently used the resources of Al-Qaida to strike at Jordan, which has been his obsession all along. Would al Zarqawi dare do that if Bin Laden were still around? I'm not so sure. Targeting American-branded hotels may have been an attempt to placate whatever old guard Al-Qaida leaders may still be around, but the motives in these attacks sound like pure al Zarqawi. That's why I think Bin Laden is out of the picture.

Posted: Sun - November 13, 2005 at      

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