The age of al Qaeda

One event transpired mostly in Canada, and the other the Horn of Africa. But, bin Laden's movement remains alive and well.

The Baltimore Sun:

WASHINGTON // The discovery of an alleged Canadian terrorist cell represents as much a victory for the movement Osama bin Laden has spawned as it does for government counterterrorism campaigns, intelligence officials said yesterday.

The apparent proliferation of small, homegrown cells inspired by bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group, they said, is heightening concerns among counterterrorism officials that the recruitment efforts of Islamic extremists are paying off - and that similar groups are likely to form in the United States, if they haven't already.

The Boston Globe:

``The Islamist takeover means that the policy and the strategy of the United States has gone terribly wrong," said Suliman Baldo , director of the Africa program for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit that works to resolve conflicts around the world. ``The US will need to think very quickly [what are] the alternatives to that strategy" that had depended upon Mogadishu's ousted warlords.

For two years, CIA officials have traveled frequently to the Mogadishu area and other Somali cities in hopes of learning more about and disrupting small bands of Al Qaeda members, who also operate in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, Kenyan pilots and two Somali warlords said recently in interviews. US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said that three Al Qaeda members indicted in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were still being protected by Islamists in Mogadishu.