US report says al-Qaida gaining strength in Afghanistan

[sabra]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - Al-Qaida has rebuilt some of its pre-Sept. 11 capabilities from remote hiding places in Pakistan, and terrorist attacks in neighboring Afghanistan increased 16 percent last year, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

The State Department's annual terrorism report says that attacks in Iraq dipped slightly between 2006 and 2007, but they still accounted for 60 percent of worldwide terrorism fatalities.

More than 22,000 people were killed by terrorists around the world in 2007, 8 percent more than in 2006, although the overall number of attacks fell, the report says.

About 13,600 noncombatants were killed in 2007 in Iraq, the report says, adding the high number could be attributed to a 50 percent increase in the number of suicide bombings. Suicide car bombings were up 40 percent and suicide bombings outside of vehicles climbed 90 percent over 2006, it says.

"The ability of these attackers to penetrate large concentrations of people and then detonate their explosives may account for the increase in lethality of bombings in 2007," the report says.


Read more: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080430/APW/804300879

[Nickster]

1. Wow, who could have foreseen that taking your eye off the ball would have these kinds of

repercussions?

[Doctor_J]

2. How can this be? The war has been such a thundering success

I thought Al Qaeda was all but dead. :sarcasm:

[acmavm]

3. The war in Iraq was the best thing to ever happen to aQ. The US

was/is the best recruiting tool they have.

[reggie the dog]

4. Well no shit.

They are flooding Europe with cheap, high quality opium, heroin, and hash (I can affirm that the hash from Afganistan is great this year, I bought some in Amsterdam, but they did not know if it was Al Qaida, MI 6, or CIA hash, just that it came through Kabul). They are making a killing selling drugs, something that was impossible when the Taliban were anti drugs prior to the American invasion.