Word: al
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...last major successful attack laid at the doorstep of al-Qaeda occurred nearly five years ago - the 2005 bombings on London's mass-transit system. But even in that instance, no one is certain that al-Qaeda was behind it. All we know is that the plot was somehow hatched in Pakistan, but the identity of the mastermind remains a matter of conjecture. Al-Qaeda certainly never provided proof that it had either foreknowledge or control of the attack...
...same is true for the Northwest Airlines bombing attempt: there's not a shred of evidence that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had anything to do with it. And the fact that bin Laden in his statement provided no inside detail of the attack pretty much says he wasn't involved. The Northwest attempt was homegrown, the would-be suicide bomber recruited in either Nigeria or Britain, the explosive device made in Yemen. His handlers call themselves al-Qaeda in Yemen, but there's no evidence that this group takes orders from the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan's tribal...
...Christmas Day bombing attempt tells us that anybody, anywhere can wage war on the U.S., with or without promoting or invoking bin Laden's name. But with each failure of al-Qaeda's, and with the mess al-Qaeda has left in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it should be clearer to the world that it's time to get over bin Laden and start dealing with more serious problems...
...believed that Jordanian physician Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi would help it infiltrate Islamist extremist groups--even find Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's elusive No. 2. But this informant, it turned out, was also an assassin, whose Dec. 30 suicide bombing of an Afghanistan CIA base killed seven agency employees. Officials are still trying to figure out how they were duped...
...intelligence agencies have had their share of moles in recent years. Senior FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested in 2001 for turning over to Moscow the names of KGB assets working for the U.S.--information that led directly to many agents' deaths. Still, al-Balawi may be the first double agent to kill his handlers and himself. In the business of secrets and spies, it's hard to know who is the enemy...