Decimating Al-Qaeda

"Abu Yahya al-Libi had been living in the Mirali area for quite a while.  Most of the people from his group were also in Mirali.  When the first missile hit, they went to the house to check the damage.  And immediately, another missile hit them at the spot.  Unfortunately,Sheikh sahib (Libi) was martyred.  This is a big loss, he was a great scholar.  After doctor Sahib (Zawahri), he was the main al-Qaeda leader."  Pakistani Taliban leader

The Pakistani Taliban, which has given shelter and haven to al-Qaeda for quite some while, may be aggrieved over these losses, but not apparently, more agitated and upset than the State of Pakistan itself.  The stepped-up drone strikes that have been hitting the core leadership of al-Qaeda, ensconced on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in the North Waziristan region have been hugely successful in upsetting Pakistan. 

"The Parliament had emphatically stated that they were unacceptable.  Drone strikes represented a clear red-line for Pakistan", reads a statement in the wake of the recent drone upsurge.  Pakistan criticizes the drone strikes as counter-productive.  Obviously the U.S. takes issue with that.  Unless one is to take from that remark that Pakistan is committed to sheltering al-Qaeda.  Which it of course strenuously denies.

It did so even in the face of compelling evidence that would lead to an opposite conclusion.  As the U.S. Navy SEALs raid a year ago in Abbottabad revealed, when it was discovered that Osama bin Laden was living in secluded comfort in his specially-built compound, a handy stone's throw from an elite military training installation.  The entire country suffered an apoplectic attack of fury at that incursion into the country's airspace.

There are those knowledgeable experts on Islamist ideological venom who feel that al-Qaeda, the headquarters parent of the movement, has become irrelevant, and the fact that only one mastermind of mass psychosis remaining, personified by its sole leader, Ayman Al-Zawahri, leaves it rudderless.  But two leaders have been eradicated in a year.  One left to go.

Which still leaves its deadly off-shoots in Somalia and Yemen and Pakistan. Al Qaeda in theArabian Peninsula has taken the initiative from its mentor to begin targeting the West.  And Al-Shabaab has found recruits among eager young Muslims wanting to join the panoply of the blessed martyrs, within North America. 

"The radicalization phenomenon is now almost enshrined in some of our vulnerable communities.  We are seeing more and more individuals travelling abroad", testified the RCMP's top national security officer in April before the Special Senate committee on Anti-Terrorism in Canada.

The psychotic contagion of hate and the fervent desire to serve Islamism's jihad for conquest of the non-Muslim world has no shortage of adherents who believe that their personal sacrifice in the veneration of Islam's goal is a price they should be willing to pay.