Summer Storm
ABC's The Blotter says Taliban commander Mansour Dadullah has threatened the world with terror attacks that will dwarf the failed London bombings, dispatching teams to the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.
It's interesting to speculate on what those attack teams look like. Whether they consist of nationals of the target countries, the better to penetrate. Whether these new attackers are better trained at preparing explosive devices than the failed London bombers. But most curiously of all, why did a relatively obscure Taliban commander announce his attack, when silence would have bought surprise? For political purposes such an attack should have been described as originating from Iraq by Zawahiri himself in order to bolster the "Iraq blowback" theory. It hardly fits the playbook to talk about blowback from Afghanistan. But maybe al-Qaeda is calling attention to threats from Pakistan as one way of taking the heat away from their boys in Iraq.
Nothing follows.
posted by wretchardthecat at 7/14/2007 04:39:00 AM
8 Comments:
One could follow a 'boy who cried wolf" strategy, constantly threatening attacks so the threats were devalued and the opponent lets his guard down.
But I think these guys just like to talk tough, probably to compensate for erectile dysfuntion. ;)
Intellectual penetration
Boasting about the extent to which the organisation can orchestrate attacks around the world is self-serving and probably an attempt to nurse a bruised ego after the spectacular failure of the recent London bombings.
Announcing any attacks in advance, even when they aren't in place yet, gives the organisation a preemptive claim of responsibility for any other attacks that rival groups might stage in the vicinity. Thus, credit can be claimed by the Taliban even if it wasn't entirely responsible for staging a successful terrorist attack there. It obviously becomes much harder then for rival groups to claim credit when the Taliban is doing their "I-told-you-so" dance and gloating over a 'stolen' success.
What is the Taliban's main objective?
Answer, topple Musharraf.
This fits in by showing that the Taliban can attack the West with impunity. Musharraf is weak and must be abandoned.
"...will dwarf the failed London bombings...."
Okay, so maybe these guys are smarter than I thought. They will display even bigger failures. I can imagine the Jay Leno opening monologue now: "Sheik Osama Bin Laden does the work of three full grown men. And their names are Larry, Moe and Curly."
And then, when we all think they are the gang that can't bomb straight, they hit us again for real.
In reality, the attacks of 9/11/01 were hatched more in our minds than theirs. When airline hijackings were to be responded with meekly complying with the hijackers demands, when we responded to terrorist bombings by carefully firing cruise missiles at empty camps, when the President could not interrupt his golf game to give authority to hit Bin Laden, when orders were issued that bribes to gather intelligence information could only be paid to people of good moral character - those were the Good Old Days for terrorists.
rwe -- I agree partially. But consider all the various ways in which it's fairly easy it kill lots of people (I won't mention them here, but I even *I* can think of lots) and AQ operating from NWF can do pretty much what it wants.
Bin Laden is a dangerous man. He (or Zawahari) saw immediately the flaw in Bojinka when KSM pitched it to him again for funding: too many operatives meant too much to go wrong; reduced it from 12 planes to four.
Well, as commentors have stated elsewhere. . .since the bombings in London failed, just about ANY successful terrorist attack on the west would 'dwarf them'.
Personally, I worry about this about as much as getting stung to death by bees while being hit by lightning. . .on the day I win the lottery.
Some of it is puffery. The cat is attacked and what does it do? Its fur stands on end, it arches its back all in attempt to makes itself look bigger.
Part of it is to keep the political stirred up in the West. Surrenderists can point to this how the Taliban is enjoying a resurgence, just because the needed troops to put down the Taliban are elsewhere.
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