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| Terror Networks |
| Negroponte sez al-Qaeda weakened but an inspiration to others |
| 2006-04-25 |
| US intelligence chief John Negroponte said that Al-Qaeda is a weakened organization that serves mainly as an inspiration to other Islamic terrorist groups. But Negroponte predicted it will take a generation to win the ideological struggle against Islamic extremist groups which have grown and spread by inflaming grievances that are commonly held in the Muslim world. His comments came a day after the airing of an audio tape attributed to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden calling on Muslim fighters to wage war in Sudan against "crusader thieves." Speaking to the Anti-Defamation League, Negroponte said Al-Qaeda and its affiliates remain the top threat to the United States. But he said Bin Laden's group is "a somewhat weakened organization." "They still plot against our homeland and bin Laden and Zawahiri are still alive -- his deputy -- but they have suffered a lot of losses in their high command," he said in response to a question. "And if anything, I think that, rather than directing many different operations around the world, I think they are more in the mode of serving as an inspiration for some of these terroristically inclined groups elsewhere," he said. Negroponte said other Islamic extremists, aided by global telecommunications, are now playing prominent roles in pushing Al-Qaeda ideology. "The result is that we are facing a range of groups, networks and individuals espousing Al-Qaeda's ideology and attempting to carry out its anti-Western agenda," he said. To win the war against Muslim extremism will require that Muslims recognize it as a problem, something that he said "will take the work of a generation to fix." "Turning the tide of an ideology that has been hardened in conflict after conflict, adding places like Chechnya, Indonesia and Somalia to the list of over a dozen so-called jihads since Afghanistan, will take time and sustained commitment," he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 My gawd, man, I'm a diplomat, not an intelligence czar. -- Negroponte |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-04-25 10:13 |
| #1 Only a frigging, weak kneed diplodinc could come up with words like... "weakened but inspiring" to describe a heinous, murdering enemy. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-04-25 07:31 |