Some interesting news is out there from the war on terror, of course being swamped by the news of Spitzer’s fall from grace. First off, al-Qaeda is apparently starting to fracture from the pressure, which has apparently manifested itself with some infighting:

Internal divisions between Saudi and Egyptian leaders of al Qaeda are producing “fissures” within the terrorist group and a possible battle over who will succeed Osama bin Laden, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday.

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“And frankly, then, we think there has been an awful lot of jockeying” among possible successors, Mr. Hayden said.

“Keep in mind, he’s a Saudi. An awful lot of that leadership is Egyptian. If the Saudi dies, who becomes the next guy may be quite a contentious matter,” he said.

“And there are fissures in al Qaeda because of this dominance of Egyptians inside the senior leadership, where you have a Saudi at the top,” Mr. Hayden said during a meeting at CIA headquarters in McLean. “You can only imagine what then happens if he goes and then who comes in.”

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An intelligence official said there are signs of “tensions” inside al Qaeda, which are being watched closely, especially related to succession. Bin Laden is Saudi and many senior leaders are Egyptian, but many of the extremist foot soldiers are Central Asian.

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Bin Laden’s efforts to avoid capture have limited his role in al Qaeda’s operations, Mr. Hayden said.

“He’s putting a lot of his energy into hiding right now.”

Zawahri, however, has been “more active,” said Mr. Hayden, noting that the chances of getting Zawahri are better because “the more active you are, the more vulnerable you are.”

Sounds like we have pretty good visibility inside al-Qaeda from the looks of these comments. It could indicate we are getting closer to finding our long sought targets. And I have no clue what to make of a comment out of Iran that praises the Pakistan government for going after al-Qaeda:

Supreme Leader’s representative in Hormozgan Province said here on Monday Iranian and Pakistani nations are members of the same nation, due to their shared belief in Islam.

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Na’eimabadi praised the Pakistani government’s campaign against Al-Qaeda, adding, “Al-Qaeda’s mentality is fixed at terrorism and fomenting disputes among Muslims.”

That is quite a public damnation to be making against al-Qaeda, and noting their negative and brutal impact on Islam. Seems there the rift between al-Qaeda and Islam is growing.

It seems we also took out another group of militant Taliban leaders in Afghanistan:

Coalition forces struck a compound with precision-guided munitions in the early morning hours of March 12 following an imminent threat from the Haqqani Network, US military officials have told Phil Peterson, a Long War Journal correspondent currently traveling with the US military in Afghainstan. Multiple intelligence sources believe senior insurgent leaders were present in the compound at the time of the strike.

The NY Times tries to spin our successes in quelling the violence in Iraq as a ‘stalemate’! Yeah, a stalemate of massive progress:

Newly declassified statistics on the frequency of insurgent attacks in Iraq suggest that after major security gains last fall in the wake of an American troop increase, the conflict has drifted into a stalemate, with levels of violence remaining stubbornly constant from November 2007 through early 2008.

Constantly low! Look at their own chart:

I don’t think al-Qaeda thinks they are winning or beating us or even in a stalemate. They still seem to be on the run and losing a lot of fighters as we and the Iraqis hunt them down and kill them. The current “stalemate” shows a level of violence consistent when Iraqis where voting in their new constitution and government. No amount of success will satisfy liberals, they can only accept American defeat and surrender. Maybe the NY Times should pay attention to what the Islamo Fascists say, because they are not so blindly optimistic about their future:

On February 12, 2008, the Qatari daily Al-‘Arab published an interview with Al-Qaeda commander in northern Iraq Abu-Turab Al-Jaza’iri. The interview, at an Al-Qaeda hideout in northern Iraq, was conducted according to Al-Qaeda’s stipulations – including no disclosure of the region where it took place and no communications or recording equipment of any kind brought to the site.

Asked about Al-Qaeda’s position in Iraq, with reference to the U.S. announcement that it had been paralyzed, Al-Jaza’iri replied: “…[The Islamic Republic of Iraq] is alive, striking, bombing, and planning to attack various military targets belonging to the Crusaders and to betrayers of Islam, i.e. the Shi’ites and Kurds who have joined the occupier…

“It is true that we have lost several cities and have been forced to withdraw from others, after a large number of [Sunni] tribal leaders betrayed Islam and when their tribe members joined forces against us. However, we are still fighting, and the ‘paralysis’ mentioned by the Crusaders is true only for some of the regions. [Besides,] it is common knowledge that any war always involves advance and retreat, so that [even] in those regions I wouldn’t call our position ‘paralysis,’ but rather ‘the [changing] conditions of the war.'”

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Asked about how to rectify Al-Qaeda’s mistakes, Al-Jaza’iri replied: “…[These mistakes] can be rectified by expelling the elements that have harmed Al-Qaeda’s [good name] and by following the principle of ‘quality over quantity.’ Today, our [organization] numbers over 9,000 fighters, but only 3,000 can be relied upon. The rest are unreliable, since they keep harming [the good name] of Al-Qaeda – as you call it – [that is,] of the Islamic State of Iraq…”

This guy is full of BS and bluster and is trying not to show how badly things are going. He promises a big event for the anniversary of the war. My bet it is not that spectacular, but involves the mass murder of many Muslims.