The war on terrorist organizations gets a lot less media attention than does the war with terrorists. The terrorist violence in Iraq, Israel, Chechnya, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia and a few other places gets a reporters attention. But there are more important developments, with the terrorist organizations, that we hear little about. There?s a good reason for that, as the war against the terrorist organizations is an intelligence operation. Espionage agents, informants, spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping are the principal weapons. The action, such as it is, takes place in the shadows, and doesn?t make much noise. 

Because of the secret war against al Qaeda, a lot is known about the organization. This is mainly because most of the members are not very well educated in areas like OPSEC (operational security, keeping the enemy from observing your activities). Email and phone messages are caught and recorded, while couriers, and what they are carrying, are captured regularly. Fallujah yielded a large haul of al Qaeda documents, as have raids in Pakistan and elsewhere. Hardly any of this stuff is leaked to the media, lest al Qaeda find out how much the infidels know. But despite their bumbling and amateurish efforts, al Qaeda members are out to kill. They get their act together from time to time and pull off a major operation. Until the movement dies out, which may take a generation, the war on terror will continue.

Al Qaeda is not one organization, like the CIA, MI-6 or Mossad. Al Qaeda is a coalition of over three dozen terrorist groups that cooperate, often loosely, in their war against the infidels (non-Moslems). At the moment, the most powerful branch of al Qaeda is the one operating in Iraq. And that?s because there, al Qaeda has joined forces with the Baath Party, which is trying to return the Sunni Arabs to power in Iraq. This reaffirms an old truism in the terrorist world; you can?t succeed without money and a population to provide support. Anywhere there are Moslems, you will find some who either approve of al Qaeda?s goals (converting the world to Islam), or are willing to support al Qaeda operations. The percentage of approvers is large, often a third or more of Moslem populations. The percentage of supporters is much smaller. You can see this from the small number of al Qaeda terrorist operations around the world. With millions of Moslems in North American and Europe, there have been very few al Qaeda terror attacks. In fact, those two areas have seen just one in the past three years. It?s a different story in Moslem countries, where al Qaeda goals also include replacing the current kings, dictators, or corrupt democracies, with better government. One thing that must always be kept in mind is that the Moslem world is, for the most part, poorly governed and economically backward. A lot of the support for al Qaeda is actually rage at the inability of Moslems to get their act together in the governance and economics department. Most Moslems recognize that al Qaeda is just one more bad idea to afflict Islamic nations. But for the moment, the al Qaeda crowd are winning the PR war. That will change over time, but for now, al Qaeda is killing people. Most of those being killed are Moslems.

The most active al Qaeda affiliates are in countries where there are other issues in play. For example. 

Chechnya- The Chechens have been part of Russia for over a century, and have been fighting the Russians, on and off, most of that time. The current bout of violence is winding down, but has left in its wake a very effective, and bloody minded, group of Islamic terrorists. The Russians, as they have done so many times before, are in the process of killing all the Islamic terrorists in Chechnya, or driving them into exile. But this process still has another year or so to go.

Saudi Arabia- Al Qaeda's biggest financial supporters are here, as are one of the largest pools of recruits. Saudi Arabia is the source of the strict, violent and paranoid form of Islam (Wahhabism) that serves as al Qaeda?s religious foundation. The family (the al Sauds) that rules Saudi Arabia also subscribes to Wahhabism. So the battle in this kingdom is over which Wahhabist faction will be dominant. The smart money is on the al Sauds, but you never know.

Afghanistan- The Taliban are sort of al Qaeda Lite. Real al Qaeda are operating in Afghanistan, but many of the Taliban factions are turning against them. The majority of Afghans care for neither Taliban nor al Qaeda. But at the moment, the Afghan al Qaeda are getting a lot of money and manpower from Pakistani, and other, al Qaeda organizations. This is largely because al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding somewhere along the Afghan/Pakistan border. So the