Did rivals finger bin Laden?
Who snitched on Osama bin Laden? A Saudi newspaper points to that intriguing possibility that the al-Qaida leader might have been set up by a rival faction led by –Guess who?-- his top deputy, Egyptian Ayman Al Zawahiri, according to the Daily Mail.
The plot allegedly began when Zawahiri’s faction persuaded bin Laden to move out of the hard-to-reach and well-protected tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border, the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper reported Thursday. He moved to his more comfortable compound in Abbottabad, where U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 "terminated" him last weekend, as the line in Apocalypse Now goes, "with extreme prejudice."
The plot to sink bin Laden allegedly began in earnest last autumn, as a result of irreconcilable differences between the two men. A Pakistani national from Zawahiri’s faction let U. S. forces follow him to bin Laden’s hideout, the Saudi paper reported, quoting an unnamed source.
Of course, when you don’t know the source of a leaked story, you can only guess at the motives for the leak. This particular scoop could be true or it could have been planted by a rival to Zawahiri who hopes bin Laden loyalists will think it is true. Either possibility lends credence to mounting reports that al-Qaida is divided against itself, fragmented by internal rivalries, years of pounding by the U.S. and growing competition for the hearts and minds of Muslim youth by the pro-democracy “Arab Spring” movement that’s shaking up the Middle East.
For now, we can read reports of a civil war inside al-Qaida with cautious satisfaction—and hope they destroy each other before they manage to attack the rest of us.
Of course, when you don’t know the source of a leaked story, you can only guess at the motives for the leak. This particular scoop could be true or it could have been planted by a rival to Zawahiri who hopes bin Laden loyalists will think it is true. Either possibility lends credence to mounting reports that al-Qaida is divided against itself, fragmented by internal rivalries, years of pounding by the U.S. and growing competition for the hearts and minds of Muslim youth by the pro-democracy “Arab Spring” movement that’s shaking up the Middle East.
For now, we can read reports of a civil war inside al-Qaida with cautious satisfaction—and hope they destroy each other before they manage to attack the rest of us.
The statement al-Qaeda sent out sure made it look as if they're fractured. By leaving that last paragraph in place, it was obviously it had been written long before, and someone just sent it out 'as is'. That wouldn't havve happened if there was a clear succession, or any sort of leadership in place.
Posted by: Tom J | May 07, 2011 at 04:56 PM