The New Al-Qaeda Central

The New Al-Qaeda Central
Far From Declining, the Network Has Rebuilt, With Fresh Faces and a Vigorous Media Arm

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 9, 2007; Page A01

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- When Osama bin Laden resurfaced Friday in a 26-minute videotaped speech, his most important message was one left unsaid: We have survived.

The last time bin Laden showed his face to the world was three years ago, in October 2004. Since then, al-Qaeda's core leadership -- dubbed al-Qaeda Central by intelligence analysts -- has grown stronger, rebuilding the organizational framework that was badly damaged after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, according to counterterrorism officials in Pakistan, the United States and Europe.



It has accomplished this revival, the officials said in interviews, by drawing on lessons learned during 15 years of failed campaigns to destroy it. In that period, bin Laden and his followers have outfoxed powerful enemies from the Soviet army to the Saudi royal family to the CIA.

Dodging the U.S. military in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, al-Qaeda Central reconstituted itself across the Pakistani border, returning to the rugged tribal areas surrounding the organization's birthplace, the dusty frontier city of Peshawar. In the first few years, Pakistani and U.S. authorities captured many senior leaders; in the past 18 months, no major figure has been killed or caught in Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda Central moved quickly to overcome extensive leadership losses by promoting loyalists who had served alongside bin Laden for years. It restarted fundraising, recruiting and training. And it expanded its media arm into perhaps the most effective propaganda machine ever assembled by a terrorist or insurgent network.

Today, al-Qaeda operates much the way it did before 2001. The network is governed by a shura, or leadership council, that meets regularly and reports to bin Laden, who continues to approve some major decisions, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. About 200 people belong to the core group and many receive regular salaries, another senior U.S. intelligence official said.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801845.html?wpisrc=newsletter



I can only wonder if Bin Laden sent a note of thanks to Bush for helping him in his time of need. Since without his blunders Al Qaeda and Bin Laden would probably not have been able to survive, certainly not in it's present state.