Senior US officials have warned in recent weeks that al-Qaeda is regrouping for another huge attack, its agents bent on acquiring nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in a nightmare scenario that could dwarf the horror of Sept. 11.
But in Pakistan and Afghanistan -- where Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy are believed to be hiding -- intelligence agents, politicians and a top US general paint a different picture.
They say a relentless military crackdown, the arrests last summer of several men allegedly involved in plans to launch attacks on US financial institutions, and the killing in September of a top Pakistani al-Qaeda suspect wanted in a number of attacks -- including the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and two failed assassination attempts against President General Pervez Musharraf -- have effectively decapitated al-Qaeda.
Pakistani intelligence agents told reporters that it has been months since they picked up any "chatter" from suspected al-Qaeda men, and longer still since they received any specific intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden or any plans to launch a specific attack
They say the trail of the world's most wanted man has turned icier than the frigid winter snows that blanket the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the terror mastermind is considered most likely to be hiding.
Pakistani officials have been quick to hail the long silence as a signal that it has already dismantled bin Laden's network, at least in this part of the world.
"We have broken the back of al-Qaeda," Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said last month in a speech in Peshawar.
Musharraf added last week that his government had "eliminated the terrorist centers" in the Waziristan tribal region and elsewhere.
"We have broken their communication system. We have destroyed their sanctuaries," he told reporters. "They are not in a position to move in vehicles. They are unable to contact their people. They are on the run."
A senior official in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency told reporters he couldn't remember the last time the agency got a strong lead on top-level al-Qaeda fighters.
"Last year, we frequently heard Arabs on radios talking about their hatred for [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and Musharraf for supporting Americans, and we were able to trace al-Qaeda hideouts in South Waziristan," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Lately, such conversations have decreased."
Pakistan's optimism seems to be backed by top US military officials in the area. Major General Eric Olson, the No. 2 US commander in Afghanistan, said he had seen nothing to indicate that al-Qaeda was attempting to get its hands on nuclear or biological weapons.
There is "no evidence that they're trying to acquire a terrorist weapon of that type and, frankly, I don't believe that they are regrouping," he told reporters in a Feb. 25 interview. ""I think the pressure on them here, the pressure on them in Pakistan, the pressure on them in Iraq, is pretty great and it makes very difficult for them to operate."
The skeptical assessments from officials here fly in the face of warnings out of Washington. But Sherpao scoffed at such warnings:
"That is simply out of the question," he said of al-Qaeda's ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, adding that any al-Qaeda leader who has escaped arrest was "more worried about their own safety."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion