Intelligence officials, in an apparent warning to Dems to not do anything else stupid, have let it be known that Bin Laden has been sidelined as the leader of al-Qaeda maybe 2 years now, and the current top enemy for our nation is Alman Zawahiri:

Intelligence officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that bin Laden has not chaired a meeting of al-Qaeda’s ruling shura, or council, in more than two years.

Instead, Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s nominal number two, is credited with rebuilding the terror network since the Afghan war in 2001.

Intelligence sources in Washington have revealed that Western spy chiefs were recently forced to revise dramatically their view that al-Qaeda was so depleted that it was little more than a cheerleader for extremists.

Instead, British and American intelligence agencies believe that a network of terrorist cells, funded, controlled and supported by al-Qaeda’s central command, based in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, is in place again.

The trap is set. al-Qaeda is massing in a region that is both rugged and isolated, but a good place to trap and kill these animals. Bin Laden is now a figurehead. Zawahiri has taken control and he is a life long terrorist from Egypt. Apparently the second team is in for al-Qaeda:

What forced the re-evaluation was the plot last August to blow up 10 aircraft en route from Britain to the US. “That sent shock waves through the intelligence -agencies of both countries,” said Prof Hoffman. “It was incontrovertible evidence that al-Qaeda was back, and that it was prepared to go after hard targets.”

A former British intelligence officer said that al-Qaeda under al-Zawahiri’s direction had promoted a new generation of leaders to the highest echelons of the shura, a group of about 20 to 30 leaders who govern operations, finance and religious fatwahs.

“The guys on the subs’ bench are now in the first XI,” he said. “They have stopped using mobile phones to talk to each other, which has made it more difficult to find them.”

While the liberal media is breathless in this confirmation of rumours and logical deduction going back months, the fact is this second team has had no success – yet. They bomb plots from London, Germany, Denmark and Turkey have been foiled. And I suspect more have been foiled we have not heard about – and prossibly never will in my lifetime. We are decimating al-Qaeda and the Muslim street is up in arms in opposition in Iraq and Lebanon. And the Afghanis continue to strive forward and show no indication of slipping back into Taliban oppression. The Islamo Fascists are too blood thirsty to stomach – except for a small, sick minority who are depleting their numbers in a classic Darwinian crack up. al-Qaeda’s sick mutation will not lead humanity forward, no matter how hard the liberals try to let it happen.

Liberals are still trying to set all our resources on Bin Laden. Well, that is clearly not the best thing to do right now, but it does illustrate once again how brain dead the Dems are on national security. They would have us chasing a dead or dying ghost, and losing ground everywhere else. One thing they better not do is complain when we level the areas where al-Qaeda is grouping. Because there will come a time when we do finally decide to clear out the last hornets nest, and those who said we should do this above all else better not turncoat on us. We have been waiting for the hornets to all meet at the nest before we take it out. We may be coming upon that time.