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News analysis: is world safer a year after bin laden' s death? by ferujkll sdff
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News analysis: is world safer a year after bin laden' s death? |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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WASHINGTON, April 30- A year after the death of terror mastermindOsama bin Laden, al Qaida' s core leadership has scattered and itsback is broken, but some of the movement' s offshoots remaindeadly, U.S. experts said. This week marks the first anniversary of the U.S. raid on al-Qaeda's Pakistan compound, in which bin Laden was killed in a firefightwith U.S. Navy Seals.
Even then, al Qaida was on the ropes after years of being hunted bythe United States and its allies around the world. Several of thegroup' s leaders had been killed and planners were being eyed tooclosely to mount any serious operations, let alone one as massiveas the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. A year later, the group remains in disarray, and has not found aleader to match the larger-than-life bin Laden' s charisma andvision. All told, that is the least of its problems. "We have been saying for years that operationally they arebasically irrelevant," said Scott Stewart, analyst at globalintelligence company Stratfor.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, White House top CounterterrorismAdviser John Brennan said the United States has "degraded theorganization significantly over the past decade and over the pastseveral years in particular as we' ve taken off the battlefield thefounding leader". "We' re determined to destroy that organization," he said. "Butthat' s going to continue to require us to maintain this pressureon al-Qaeda, whether it be in Pakistan, Afghanistan as well as inYemen." AL QAiDA FRANCHISES REMAIN DEADLY But while al Qaida proper was rendered ineffective even before thedeath of its founder, some of the extremist group' s franchisesremain dangerous. Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), basedin Yemen, controls large swaths of the embattled country, andal-Shabaab, al Qaida' s affiliate group in Somalia, remains athreat there, experts said. Stewart noted AQAP has shown the ability to strike outside ofYemen' s borders, pointing to the 2009 Christmas Day bombingattempt in which a terror operative tried to detonate a bomb hiddenin his underwear over Detroit.
The U.S. federal authorities saidNigerian Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab was assisted by AQAPleaders. Stewart said the United States is likely to keep up the pressure onal Qaida in the long run, as it could regenerate if given enoughslack. That is because the ideology is still there, and the United Statesis unable to combat radical jihadist dogma.
"The U.S. just doesn' thave any legitimacy in the theological battlefield," he said."That' s something Muslims will have to do." THE THREAT OF LONE WOLVES As al Qaida's core declines, the threat to the United States, inparticular, has in recent years taken the form of homegrownradicalism. These are al Qaida-inspired groups or lone wolves who organizethrough social media, are influenced by jihadist dogma, and may ormay not have contact with professional terrorists. Richard Fadden, the head of the Canadian Security IntelligenceService, last week told a Canadian Senate committee that it isdifficult to identify lone wolf terror operatives, as they operatein isolation and often have no ties to known extremists. "These individuals seem to be a mix of terrorists and people whosimply have very big personal problems," he said.
Jessica Zuckerman, a research associate for homeland security atthe Heritage Foundation, noted that since 9/11 there have been 50thwarted terror plots against the United States. Of those, 42 were homegrown. Among those groups, some work togetherbut a large chunk operate independently of other any group oraffiliation, with the level of connection to global terror networkslessening in recent years, she said. Much debate centers around whether lone wolves present a greaterthreat because they are difficult to track and can strike withoutwarning. However, they often lack bomb making or other weaponsskills to mount large -- or even small -- terror attacks, she said.
That is why terror experts say the most likely future scenariowould be a small arms attack similar to the 2009 Fort Hood attacks,in which Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, allegedlywent on a shooting spree that left 13 dead. I am an expert from Luggage & Travel Bags, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as authentic hockey jersey , plus sized pants.
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