Word: al-qaeda
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...Both cases exposed intelligence problems, but while the bombing attempt on the Detroit plane was believed to be the work of one misguided youth who may or may not have had links to al-Qaeda, analysts fear that the alleged attack on the Danish cartoonist may signal a wider plot by radical Islamists in Somalia to take their fight abroad...
...Afghanistan: Having proclaimed it "the right war" on the campaign trail, Obama initially sought to lower the benchmark of success to avoid nation-building or expansive counterinsurgency and instead focus narrowly on preventing al-Qaeda from restoring its presence there. But the commander he appointed to take charge of the war, General Stanley McChrystal, warned the White House last summer that the U.S. side was losing in Afghanistan and requested tens of thousands more troops to stop the Taliban's advance. After months of internal debate, Obama opted to send reinforcements, with the hopelessly optimistic caveat that they would begin...
...Al-Qaeda: The attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack on an airliner landing in Detroit was a reminder that al-Qaeda is still with us - albeit in radically depleted form. While the war launched in Afghanistan in response to its first attack on U.S. soil remains a tough challenge, the terrorist network has been left on the defensive by years of intelligence and police work that have systematically rolled up or killed many of its key leaders. (Unfortunately, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have provided plenty of willing recruits for what remains of the organization.) Obama has tried to transform...
During his presidential campaign, Obama criticized Guantánamo as little more than terrorist advertising. The senior Administration official echoed that refrain, saying al-Qaeda has recently used Guantánamo as one of its "recruiting and motivational tools." Because of its notorious reputation, he said, it should be closed as quickly as possible. Critics counter that sending detainees back home - especially to poorer nations like Yemen (where unemployment hovers around 40%) - could allow them to attack again, especially if they were radicalized during their Guantánamo stay. And they maintain that sending such detainees to the Illinois prison...
...Congress 15 days before they were slated to be transferred. Among them were several whose cases had received some attention in the controversy over detainees at Guantánamo: Jamal Muhammad Alawi Mari, who was captured in Karachi, Pakistan where was the head of a local charity with alleged al-Qaeda links; Farouq Ali Ahmed, who had traveled to Afghanistan to teach children the Koran and was arrested without a passport in Pakistan; and Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, a doctor who treated al-Qaeda fighters at the battle of Tora Bora and met Osama bin Laden briefly...