Errrr, I dont think he's in Yemen. But if you see this guy, let me know.

Washington, Sept 14: The Bush Administration’s former chief counter-terrorism adviser, Richard Clark, has claimed that Osama bin Laden is either in Yemen or Somalia, and not in Pakistan.

Clark, who was also the chief counter-terrorism adviser to the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration, said that bin Laden was propagating a kind of propaganda to lure Washington into a sense of neutrality to enable it to strengthen itself.

"Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, ‘America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country.’ He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda," the Daily Times quoted Clark, as saying.

"In other words, we stepped right into bin Laden’s propaganda. And, the result of that is that al Qaeda and organisations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened," he added.

Photo courtesy of Hot Air

UPDATE by Rusty: Horn of Africa? Er, haven't I been saying that since, oh, 2003? Yeah, I think Clark is a nutjob, but there is something to the notion that if bin Laden is alive, he's not in the same caves occupied by the rest of the al Qaeda jerkoffs.

None of the bin Laden videos over the past three years have the same quality as those prior to that time. None of them are comparable to the other as Sahab produced videos of recent years. If you look at similar videos featuring Zawahiri, al Libi, or Gadahn, there is a similar production quality. And that quality is rather high.

Not so with bin Laden's videos which tend to be of a much lower quality, never show him interacting with other al Qaeda members, and which appear to have been taken at a different location---one without a blue screen backdrop.

As far as Clark's idiotic notion that we are doing exactly what al Qaeda wants us to do--I'm speechless. It's falsified by the fact that bin Laden has explicitly asked that we withdraw from Iraq. So, bin Laden asks us to do something--withdraw--and by not doing it we are doing exactly what he wants us to do?

This is bin Laden as diabolical genius. Every move we make is part of his grand scheme.

Well played Mr. bin Laden. Well played.

If we are in a bind in Iraq and elsewhere, so too is al Qaeda. Because on one level people like Clark are right--the Iraq war is a great recruitment tool for al Qaeda.

The problem is that people like Clark don't understand al Qaeda's goals. It's sheer ignorance. Al Qaeda's goal is not to kill or to commit acts of terror. Terrorism isn't an end, it's a means.

The short-term goal of al Qaeda is the establishment of regional Islamic states based on sharia law. Since the U.S. stands in the way of that goal, they attack us.

Yes, Iraq is a recruiting ground for Salafi radicals, but having an army is not enough. That isn't his goal. His goal is for us to withdraw so that he can then use that army to establish Taliban-like regime. As long as we stand in the way of that goal, we are winning.

Random factoids from Jane:
1) Over 25,000 migrants made the sea voyage from Somalia to Yemen in 2006. Hundreds of jihaddists made the trip in reverse, leaving from Yemen to join the ICU in Somalia last year. Weapons and funds also transited via this route. Its a two day journey in a small boat.
2) The Sudan was recently found liable in a federal court for the attack on the USS Cole. The victims' families were able to sue because the Sudan is classified as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department, a designation not shared by Yemen, which precluded the families from bringing a similiar suit against the Yemeni regime.

Posted by: JaneNovak at 01:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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