Five Years After 9/11, Bin Laden's Network Is Back

[Eurobabe]

As Western intelligence agencies are discovering, al-Qaida is by no means finished. Training camps have reappeared in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan, as Osama bin Laden's terrorist network regains its strength.

The news is alarming. US and French intelligence agencies are convinced that terrorist network Al-Qaida has reorganized, and even that it has developed new training camps, both in Afghanistan and the remote tribal regions of northern Pakistan. They believe that a new generation of terrorists has come of age, and some are suspected of planning attacks in the West.

Five and a half years have passed since Sept. 11, 2001 and the beginning of the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The physical presence of Osama bin Laden's network was largely destroyed at the time, with the terrorist camps which had trained an estimated 20,000 men quickly reduced to rubble. Two years ago, the White House crowed that two-thirds of Al-Qaida's leadership had been eliminated. "We're winning," US President George W. Bush claimed recently. "Al-Qaida is on the run."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,476324,00.html