An interesting read from David Kaplan in US News on the CIA's war against al Qaeda - Playing Offense: The inside story of how U.S. terrorist hunters are going after al Qaeda. Some excerpts:
"After 9/11, the gloves come off."Gee, I wonder why?
–COFER BLACK, former director, CIA Counterterrorism Center
And the brass knuckles came on. America's frontline agents in the war on terror have hacked into foreign banks, used secret prisons overseas, and spent over $20 million bankrolling friendly Muslim intelligence services. They have assassinated al Qaeda leaders, spirited prisoners to nations with brutal human-rights records, and amassed files equal to a thousand encyclopedias.
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Black knew al Qaeda well. He had chased Osama bin Laden ever since the Saudi exile tried to kill him in Sudan a decade earlier. Black had returned the favor, drafting CIA plans to assassinate bin Laden long before 9/11--plans that, on the order of higher-ups, sat on the shelf.
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The war in Afghanistan caught al Qaeda's leaders off guard. Bin Laden's top people were convinced the United States would respond to 9/11 with merely a volley of cruise missiles, interrogations later showed.
"It is impossible to overestimate the importance that our Arab allies played--the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the North Africans," explains Roger Cressey, the former terrorism expert on the National Security Council. "They understand them better, they penetrated the cells--we certainly didn't."A ton more by following the link.
The Pakistanis, however, draw the most praise. Pakistan served as midwife to the Taliban, helping bring the radical regime to power in neighboring Afghanistan. But after 9/11, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf turned on a dime and cracked down on al Qaeda terrorists who sought refuge in his country. That policy netted the war on terror's biggest fish.
It began with Riyadh the Facilitator.
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The tactics employed were basic enough. In newspaper ads, the Pakistani Army offered fat rewards for tips about strange foreigners. Riyadh's neighbors had noticed the odd comings and goings of people who entered his small home. Once in custody, he talked. Soon, investigators were chasing down leads into al Qaeda's growing presence in Pakistan.
