Word: bin
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...standards of Arab strongmen, Hassan Nasrallah is a charmer. In televised appearances made from the undisclosed location where he shelters from Israeli bombs, the Hizballah leader appears more soothing than bellicose. There is none of Saddam Hussein's finger wagging or Yasser Arafat's eye-bulging lectures or Osama bin Laden's hectoring sneer. Instead, Nasrallah reads deliberately from notes, occasionally swallowing as if to catch his breath. Every so often, he looks into the camera and flashes a smile...
...Know thine enemy." Investigators rounding up suspects searched for a definitive link to al-Qaeda's leaders. Indeed, two of the would-be bombers seem to have met in Pakistan with an alleged al-Qaeda lieutenant and explosives expert. But a clear link may be beside the point. Osama bin Laden has become an ism--as much ideology as flesh--and al-Qaeda has largely devolved or maybe evolved into a franchise operation. Radical groups in various countries are largely self- activated and self-sustaining, though they may check in with top management before a major assault...
...carry-on baggage. Terrorists, like movie studios and toddlers, don't like to try new things. In 1987 two North Korean agents posing as father and daughter put a radio packed with plastic explosives and a whisky bottle full of liquid explosives in a bag in the overhead bin of a South Korean airliner. Then they got off on a layover. The subsequent explosion sent the plane spinning into the jungle near the Thailand-Burma border, killing all 115 people onboard...
...Even if the invasion of Iraq "proved" Bin Laden's claim of an innate U.S. hostility to the Muslim world, his remedy - a global jihad against the "far enemy" led by himself - appears to have diminished appeal. That may be in part because the alternatives are more compelling: The "far" enemy has drawn very near in Iraq, and those pulled to jihad can actually engage its soldiers in battles that necessarily leave Bin Laden and Zawahiri far away from the action...
...dead, even if the perpetrators had no direct organizational connection but were simply following the idea. But it may also be a sign that the events of the past five years have changed the dynamics of the Muslim world in ways that have marginalized it, so much so that Bin Laden now faces more compelling contenders for the mantle of champion of jihadist rage...