Qaeda threat from Afghan-Pakistan, not Iraq

"Attacking the United States clearly remains on bin Laden's agenda. But the likelihood that such an attack would be launched from Iraq, many experts contend, has sharply diminished over the past year as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has undergone dramatic changes. Once believed to include thousands of 'foreign fighters,' it is now an overwhelmingly Iraqi organization whose aims are likely to remain focused on the struggle against the Shiite majority in Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials said.
. . . [O]fficials estimated that Iraqis make up 90 percent of AQI's several thousand fighters.
. . . [B]in Laden appears to have regained his stature among Muslim extremists and bolstered his ability to draw recruits. 'As people around the world sign up to fight jihad,' the intelligence official said, 'before they were always going to Iraq. Now we see more winding up in Pakistan.'
As al-Qaeda recoups its numbers and organizational structure in the lawless and inaccessible territory along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, it is seen as having little need for major bases in western Iraq, where the flat desert topography is ill-suited for concealment from U.S. aerial surveillance."

source
DeYoung, Karen & Pincus, Walter. (The Washington Post). Al-Qaeda in Iraq May Not Be Threat Here. March 18, 2007.

posted: monday, march 19, 2007, 11:12 PM ET
update: friday, march 23, 2007, 8:49 PM ET

tags: iraq al qaeda osama bin laden