Al-Qaida Ability Diminishing

The Associated Press, via ABC News, reports that Pakistani officials say al-Qaida effectively decapitated.

Pakistani intelligence agents told The Associated Press that it has been months since they picked up any "chatter" from suspected al-Qaida men, and longer still since they received any specific intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden or any plans to launch a specific attack

[. . .]

Pakistani officials have been quick to hail the long silence as a signal that it has already dismantled bin Laden's network, at least in this part of the world.

"We have broken the back of al-Qaida," Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said last month in a speech in Peshawar, the capital of the frontier province on the border with Afghanistan. Musharraf added last week that his government had "eliminated the terrorist centers" in the Waziristan tribal region and elsewhere.

"We have broken their communication system. We have destroyed their sanctuaries," the president told reporters. "They are not in a position to move in vehicles. They are unable to contact their people. They are on the run."

Articles like this worry me. First, such articles tempt those tiring of what necessarily will be a long war into thinking the war is nearly over. Second these articles may cause us to become complacent in battling the evil doers. Third and much worse, articles saying al-Qaida is ineffective will force the terrorists to prove they are effective by mounting some dastardly act.