The Glory that was Al-Qaeda? About Outsourcing, Yemen on their Minds.................
“Transportation authorities began imposing tighter security measures at airports on Saturday as investigators conducted searches to learn more about the Nigerian engineering student accused of igniting an incendiary device aboard a Northwest Airlines jet as it landed in Detroit on Friday…….. As a result of the attack, British Airways announced on its Web site on Saturday that passengers flying from London to the United States would be allowed to carry only one item onto a plane. In addition, an official of the United States Homeland Security Department said Friday night that other unspecified security measures would be imposed at the nation’s airports. The Transportation Security Administration was also holding a briefing on Saturday morning.…….. The incident is likely to lead to heightened security during the busy holiday season……....”
Al-Qaeda seems to have a hard time getting its reliable people into the United States- or so it seems. This means that the stricter visa measures are working- or so it seems. Al-Qaeda seems to have taken a page out of the book of Corporate America and gone outsourcing. It has been forced to seek outsourcing its operations to less reliable supporters from ‘the fringe’ like this Nigerian, the two Afghanis earlier this year, the Jordanian in Texas, Richard Reed, etc. The success of 9/11 was in its planning and security. The 19 were all reliable al-Qaeda members put in-country well ahead of time. Recruiting from within the USA has not been successful; that means reliance on the patrons of mosques half of whose patrons are potentially FBI agents and informers. All these Keystone Cops attempts at terrorism are probably peripheral, some of them allegedly ‘suggested’ by informers and agents eager to catch potential terrorists. They are nipping at the heels, as they ready for something else, something bigger with their own tried cadres. (Today I am using a lot of ‘it seems’, hedging, n’est-ce pas?).
The main result of all this will be harder times for travelers, especially air travelers, especially for people who look Middle Eastern or (real) African. Another impact will be in Yemen, the country ignored by most in the West and for good reason. But Yemen was home to those who blew up the USS Cole, and they remained free, some were arrested, managed to get free again, etc. The dictator of Yemen was hedging his bets, as he publicly denied that al-Qaeda was in Yemen, even as that country and Saudi Arabia next door were the motherland of the organization (and Pakistan and Afghanistan). ‘Yemen’ is being repeated in the American media this morning in connection with the attempt on the Northwest airliner. This suits the Yemeni regime fine, in trouble with aggrieved southern secessionists as well as aggrieved northern rebels.
Cheers and Happy Holidays
mhg
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