War on Terror: Update

This article, for which I inclue some clips, is worth reading if you want to know some news on this subject.

Other US security officials are confident that there are no more Al Qaeda secret cells in the country and Osama bin Laden cannot organise new attacks like 9/11 in New York or Washington. But they too warn that America's allies in the war against terrorism are still vulnerable to Al Qaeda attacks.

The United Kingdom will increase the number of its troops in Afghanistan under NATO cover early next year. The UK and Pakistan will increase pressure on the Taliban in southern Afghanistan through coordinated operations. US troops will increase the pressure on Al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan.

High ranking government officials and terrorism experts in Washington agree that Al Qaeda is very active in the United Kingdom and many young British Muslims could participate in deadly attacks inside and outside Europe

"We are blind to the real danger facing us," said Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer who worked in Islamabad during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The danger, Sageman said, was not more September 11-style attacks but a succession of Madrids, Casablancas, Istanbuls and Jeddahs, smaller but still highly deadly, coordinated attacks.

Rohan Gunartana, the Singapore-based terrorism expert, felt that British Muslims of Pakistani origin are the more willing recruits for Al Qaeda because there is lot of resentment in young Muslims after the US invasion of Iraq.

Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker said young Muslims are "not happy with us because we always support corrupt and non-democratic regimes in the Muslim world."

Al Qaeda's real strength is not religion but American policies which are not popular in the Muslim world.

These governments are not popular among Muslim youth, and when bin Laden criticises these corrupt governments, angry young Muslims view him as their hero, Fouda added.