Strikes leave ‘handful’ of Al Qaida targets

Washington Nearly one year ago, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta predicted the strategic defeat of Al Qaida was within reach if the United States could kill or capture up to 20 leaders of the core group and its affiliates.

In an interview on Thursday with Reuters, Panetta disclosed that only a “small handful” of the individuals on that original list remained on the battlefield and that Saudi Arabia — the birthplace of late Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden — was reporting a drop-off in recruitment.

“We’ve not only impacted on their leadership, we’ve impacted on their capability to provide any kind of command and control in terms of operations,” Panetta said.

The US defence chief visited Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and after paying US condolences over the death of the late crown prince, spoke about Al Qaida with one of his sons, Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef, who has run the kingdom’s operations against Al Qaida as a deputy interior minister.

“I asked him the question - as a result of the Bin Laden raid, as a result of what we’ve done to their leadership, where are we with Al Qaida,” Panetta recounted, adding that Al Qaida and Bin Laden “came out of Saudi Arabia.”

“Bin Nayef said, ‘For the first time, what I’m seeing is that young people are no longer attracted to Al Qaida in Saudi Arabia.’”

Panetta did not single out which leaders from his target list last year remained, but current Al Qaida chief Ayman Al Zawahiri is one he named last year and who is still believed to be living in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Asked how many targets remained, Panetta said, “It’s a small handful and it’s growing smaller all the time.”

After addressing questions about the future of Al Qaida’s top leadership, Panetta shifted his focus to the group’s ability to survive as a movement at all.

“We’ll keep the pressure on at the top and we’ll keep going after their leadership,” Panetta said.

“But the real issue that will determine the end of Al Qaida is when they find it difficult to recruit any new people.”

The killing of Bin Laden in a covert US raid in Pakistan last year has been followed by a series of unmanned aerial attacks that have crushed Al Qaida’s network along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

The latest high-profile Al Qaida leader killed in the US campaign was Abu Yahya Al Libi, the group’s second-in-command, who broke out of a high-security US prison in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2005 and was a key strategist.

Beyond the Afghan-Pakistan region, another key figure killed last year was Anwar Al Awlaki, an American imam who became a senior leader of Al Qaida’s Yemen-based affiliate.

While successful tactically, the drone strikes have further poisoned US-Pakistan relations and, critics say, raise questions about international law and could boost militant recruiting.

Only about eight hardcore Al Qaida leaders are still believed to be based in the lawless borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan, compared with dozens a few years ago.