{"id":6071,"date":"2012-02-17T13:45:25","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T20:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6071"},"modified":"2012-02-17T13:45:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T20:45:25","slug":"al-qaeda-strength-estimates-does-panetta-have-a-clue-what-hes-babbling-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6071","title":{"rendered":"Al Qaeda Strength Estimates – Does Panetta have a clue what he’s babbling about?"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Estimate of Strength of Al Qaeda Is Offered<\/strong>
\nBy DAVID E. SANGER and MARK MAZZETTI – 30 June, 2010<\/p>\n

ASPEN, Colo. \u2014 Michael E. Leiter, one of the country\u2019s top counterterrorism officials, said Wednesday that American intelligence officials now estimated that there were somewhat \u201cmore than 300\u201d Qaeda leaders and fighters hiding in Pakistan\u2019s tribal areas, a rare public assessment of the strength of the terrorist group that is the central target of President Obama\u2019s war strategy.<\/p>\n

Taken together with the recent estimate by the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, that there are about 50 to 100 Qaeda operatives now in Afghanistan, American intelligence agencies believe that there are most likely fewer than 500 members of the group in a region where the United States has poured nearly 100,000 troops.<\/p>\n

Many American officials warn about such comparisons, saying that Al Qaeda has forged close ties with a number of affiliated militant groups and that a large American troop presence is necessary to helping the Afghan government prevent Al Qaeda from gaining a safe haven in Afghanistan similar to what it had before the Sept. 11 attacks.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that on a recent trip to the region he was struck by the \u201cdepth of synergies\u201d between Al Qaeda and a number of other insurgent groups, including the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban.<\/p>\n

Mr. Leiter, who is the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, concurred with Admiral Mullen\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n

But with the fighting in Afghanistan intensifying and few indications that the Taliban are weakening, the recent estimates of Al Qaeda\u2019s strength could give ammunition to critics of President Obama\u2019s strategy who think the United States should pull most of its troops from the country and instead rely on small teams of Special Operations forces and missile strikes from C.I.A. drones.<\/p>\n

Both Mr. Leiter and Admiral Mullen were speaking at the same homeland security conference at the Aspen Institute, sponsored in part by The New York Times. Mr. Panetta\u2019s public remarks came last Sunday on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Leiter told the audience on Wednesday that \u201cwe\u2019ve had some incredible successes\u201d against Al Qaeda\u2019s leadership. Echoing Mr. Panetta\u2019s assessment, he said the group \u201cis weaker today than it has been at any time since 2001.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he quickly added, \u201cWeaker does not mean harmless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Administration officials talk increasingly about the dangers posed by militant groups affiliated with Al Qaeda, saying they have both the intent and the capabilities to attack the United States. The man accused of trying to detonate a vehicle in Times Square in May received training from the Pakistani Taliban, a group once thought to be interested only in attacking inside Pakistan. On Dec. 25, a young Nigerian man tried to blow up a transatlantic jetliner on its way to Detroit after being trained by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemen-based terror group, officials say. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Estimate of Strength of Al Qaeda Is Offered By DAVID E. SANGER and MARK MAZZETTI – 30 June, 2010 ASPEN, Colo. \u2014 Michael E. Leiter, one of the country\u2019s top counterterrorism officials, said Wednesday that American intelligence officials now estimated that there were somewhat \u201cmore than 300\u201d Qaeda leaders and fighters hiding in Pakistan\u2019s more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2511],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6073,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071\/revisions\/6073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}