Friday, March 02, 2007

al-Qaea Moving Shop

More revelations from Syed Saleem Shahzad in today's Asia Times. He claims al-Qaeda is moving shop, from the Afghan/Pakistan region to Iraq.

"According to people familiar with al-Qaeda's thinking who spoke to Asia Times Online, Osama bin Laden's deputy and the group's ideologue, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, sees potential for the group to capitalize on a possible US war over Iran. Relocating the al-Qaeda leadership from the Afghan-Pakistani border areas would put it closer to this new "epicenter".

"In addition, the relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taliban has cooled after the Taliban's decision to strike a deal with Pakistan over support for the insurgency in southwestern Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda refuses to deal with any state, including Islamabad.

"The al-Qaeda leadership is biding its time, banking on sufficient chaos in Iran and Iraq for it to move to the Middle East, according to Asia Times Online interactions with various sources."

It's likely that this is indeed what Shahzad has been told by his al-Qaeda contacts but there's no way of knowing whether it's true. What I'd like to know is whether al-Qaeda is too busy packing up for the move to take a role in the Taliban's spring offensive this year.

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