Al Qaeda’s desperation to score a big attack is becoming more obvious as once again they violate the principles of cell-structure and fail. In Egypt a 14 member Al Qaeda “cell” was captured by authorities – but 14 is more a squad than a cell.
The dangerous part of this is that the squad was comprised of 12 engineers and two Egyptian army officers who were planning terror attacks with remote drones. Their leader had met with an AQ operative from Afghanistan in Saudi Arabia, and the terror operations appear to have still been in the planning stages. The timing is notable – these arrests were made in November, but Egypt is just now releasing the information ahead of President Bushe’s visit. From Ynet:
About two months ago Egyptian authorities arrested a 14-member terror cell comprised of engineers and army officers that were planning to carry out a series of al-Qaeda-linked terror attacks against Israel, Al Jazeera reported Saturday.
Quoting local security sources, the report said the cell members – 12 engineers and two officers in the Egyptian army – were planning to assemble an unmanned aircraft to attack targets inside Israel.
The report said the cell manufactured rockets similar to those being used by Palestinian terror organizations, which were meant to be launched toward Israel from inside Egyptian territory.
The report quoted the local security sources as saying that the cell’s commander, an engineer at Alexandria University, had visited Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where he met with Afghan nationals with apparent links to al-Qaeda.
Al Qaeda is really back to their start – leadership confined to Pakistan for the most part, working with the ISI generated terror splinter groups and the Muslim brotherhood groups where Al Zawahiri got his start in Egypt.
They increasingly become more irrelevant to the general populace, but they are persistent and will eventually get lucky in one of their attacks. Nobody should be taking them one whit less seriously than we did the week after 9/11, we must be more persistent than they and continue to demolish them in total, and that must of course include all of the AQ aligned terror groups in Pakistan, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood root-groups in Egypt. The Pakistani groups were spun up by the ISI for differing purposes, mostly to expand Pakistan’s borders and to destabilize their neighbors. The Egyptian groups are the start modern Islamic terror, it goes back to Said Qutb.
The Pakistani groups such as Lashkar e Tayyeba (Taiba, Toiba) and Harkut ul Jameya Islami (various spellings here as well,) have long been out of all control and now have turned on their creators like Frankenstein’s monster. It’s time for the villagers in Pakistan to start lighting torches.
Other Al Qaeda News:
.
.
21 Al Qaeda Killed in Iraq Bombing Runs
Mauritania Extradites AQ Operatives
Yemeni Al Qaeda Vow to Free Captured Operatives
Germany Probes Al Qaeda Threat
Scotland Yard Sees AQ Links to Bhutto Assasination, Mehsud Tape Real. (This agrees with my initial assessment that Zawahiri gave the order & Baitullah probably performed the logistics.)