Yesterday I posted on many diverse articles that indicate a rapidly declining al-Qaeda as their credibility has been destroyed through their fascist efforts to violently oppress their fellow Muslims, resulting in innumerable stories of atrocities and the creation of Muslim heros in those who fought back against al-Qaeda.  Today we get another report on the decline of al-Qaeda from The Financial Times:

Between 1998 and 2001, the US suffered three serious terrorist attacks: against its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; against the USS Cole, a warship docked in Aden, in 2000; and, most devastatingly, against New York and Washington on September 11 2001. Since then, nothing.

In Europe, an easier target because of its more open borders, there have been only two successful attacks: in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

Michael McConnell, the US director of national intelligence, told Congress as recently as February that al-Qaeda was attracting an influx of western recruits and said the terror group continued to pose significant threats to the US at home and abroad. But in the months since, evidence has been mounting that the organisation responsible for the September 11 attacks has suffered some serious reversals. What follows is an examination of that evidence.

It is alarming even to me how drastically al-Qaeda’s future as changed recently.  After 9-11 they were the future hope of Islam after they struck America a savage and deadly blow. But since then, mostly through the war front in Iraq and the atrocities committed there by al-Qaeda, killing tens of thousands of Muslims, al-Qaeda has become the enemy of Islam, now being chased from Iraq by a fighting force of Muslims numbering in the 100’s of thousands.   The fact is al-Qaeda is deadly, it just cannot topple any nations:

This assessment is supported by a little-noticed reference in the UK’s new national security strategy, published in March: “While terrorism represents a threat to all our communities and an attack on our way of life, it does not at present amount to a strategic threat. But it is qualitatively and quantitatively more serious than terrorist threats we have faced in the past, and it is likely to persist for many years.”

What this means, and the Muslim street knows this, is that any attack on the West will bring quick and deadly justice from the West.  It is why there are many who think al-Qaeda dare not attack this year or else ensure another 4 years of strong leadership in McCain.  Even the Islamo Fascists Terrorists are reading their own wild desires into the vague concept of ‘change’ Obama is peddling.   The fact is we want terrorists to pause and worry about the repercussions of their actions.  We want them to think long and hard before attacking us.  We want peace through strength.  We do not want to be seen as easy targets due to our impotence to respond to attack or threat.

al-Qaeda is not dead, it is in retreat.  And I think we will see a summer where there is extreme pressure applied to their last sanctuary in the FATA area of Pakistan – which seems to be were AQ forces are retreating after their defeats in Iraq and Lebanon.  In one of the stories from my last post on this matter it was noted that the North West Frontier Province has all but rejected al-Qaeda and the radical Taliban (“by one measure, pro-Al Qaeda sentiment is now down to 10% in Saudi Arabia – and has dropped from 70% to 4% in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan”), further limiting the ‘safe haven’ al-Qaeda has to operate in.

The last three AQ leaders to be killed by the US were targeted in this area, killed by Predator drones. The last AQ forces are, for all intents and purposes, surrounded. There are about 100,000 Pakistani troops cover their southern boundary and about the same number of US and NATO forces along the Afghanistan border to the North. And there are negotiations on-going with the local tribes to turn on the terrorists like the Iraqis did in Anbar Province in Iraq. I should note many people raised red flags when we first allied with Sunnis who were previously on the side of al-Qaeda, but turned the tide in Iraq when they switched sides and now make up much of the force expelling al-Qaeda from Iraq.

We could see al-Qaeda crippled in a major way if we can turn a few tribes in FATA against al-Qaeda. Clearly we have insights into that region – how else do people think we knew where to fire our missiles and kill AQ leaders? This kind of targeting is coming from some local sources, sources ready to purge their region of the enemy al-Qaeda. If we do see an Awakening in FATA we could see al-Qaeda retreating into an ever shrinking region within FATA, isolated and walled off from the rest of the Earth until they die off with their sick ideology. They will never go easily, but they will go.