Expert: Terror Tape Shows Progress

[sabra]

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/05/earlyshow/main761397.shtml

Expert: Terror Tape Shows Progress

(CBS) As al Qaeda’s No. 2 man made new threats against the United States and London in a videotape broadcast Thursday by al-Jazeera televison, he actually unintentionally showed how much progress Washington and London have made against the terror network, an anti-terrorism expert says.

....

But Jeff Beatty, president of TotalSecurity.US, told co-anchor Julie Chen on The Early Show Monday the timing is the first tipoff that all isn’t as al Qaeda would have the world believe.

“It took four weeks for this video, after the London attacks, to surface,” Beatty says. “And that tells me a few things. First of all, he’s trying to communicate a threat. Second point: He’s trying make a general call to arms to a now-more decentralized group of people.

“And third, it tells me something about their operational capability. They are now afraid to use electronic communications, the Internet, etc., that would have made it possible for him to make this videotape available a little bit more quickly. So, what they’re using now is primitive communications, 'dead-drops.' We’ve all been hearing that term, about how spies leave something and then someone else picks it up at a spot and then moves on. This provides … security for them that they feel they need. And, when they have to operate that way, they lose the ability to command in real time.

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[MGKrebs]

1. Well, I guess we can hope he is right.

I just don't see much progress in any other phase of this "war" other than mode of communicating with the press.
Frankly, they don't seem to be having too much trouble communicating/coordinating with each other, or even recruiting.

[54anickel]

2. Desperate to show progress, yet all he communicated to me was

we're playing a game of Wack-a-Mole that can't be won.

snip>

“The interesting thing,” he observes, “is, why did they evolve to that? That’s another terrorist evolution as a result of a security force success.”

Beatty says al Qaeda has learned that crossing the border with explosives is too risky. Those border crossings are being watched. So terrorists know they have to do the “home-brew thing.”

[Quakerfriend]

4. LOL! "Wack-a-Mole"

Thx for the laugh!

[Tempest]

7. The bombs have always been home-brewed

You don't think the insurgents are going to let go to waste the 340 tons of high explosives they walked away with from unprotected weapons depots, do you?

[Quakerfriend]

3. As far as I know, they've always used dead-drops

What on earth are they going to say next to try and convince us that Al Quaeda is "on the run"?

[ktowntennesseedem]

8. Yeah, I can hear it now:

We'll have another 9/11 style attack, but say that only 1500 or so will be killed the next time. By their logic, our enemies are only half as many as before, and we have wiped out 50% of them, because they only killed half as many Americans!

Amazing how you can spin good news out of anything if you want to. Their glass is always half-full, even when the glass is broken.

(edited for clarification)

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. Somebody actually pays that idiot for his opinion/advice?

Seems to me that this same method of communication was very effective back in the 2001 WTC period. Sounds to me like that asshole Beatty is being paid to tell somebody what they want to hear.

[Tempest]

6. Another "last throes" supporter

Beatty doesn't seem to be on the ball for a so-called terrorism expert.

Al-Qaeda has always been decentralized. It was the Bushies who claimed otherwise.

The delay in releasing the tape is consistant with other tape releases after a major attack.

The tapes have always communicated threats.


But what do you expect from someone who's claim to fame is he was a consultant on the movie "The Siege"?