Pat Dollard

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Makes perfect sense. With their asses getting kicked all over the place, and with as many high-level guys as we have whacked with drones, about the only thing left for them to do to maintain their credibility beyond a slow and protracted campaign in Pakistan – and they ain’t been able to turn Afghanistan in their favor – is another hard-hitting and high profile attack on a Western target, most preferably the United States.

Related Story: Al Qaeda succession crisis.

Asia Times:

KUNAR VALLEY, Afghanistan – Nearly seven years after invading Afghanistan to go after Osama bin Laden, the United States has stepped up its campaign to catch the al-Qaeda leader and his senior associates, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, who are believed to be in the rugged terrain spanning Bajaur Agency in Pakistan and the neighboring Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan.

The US has increased surveillance operations through newly built bases in the region and additional daily flights of Predator drones scour the area for any suspicious characters who might lead the US to the world’s most wanted man.

The recent killing of leading al-Qaeda figures Sheikh Abu Soliman and Sheikh Osman in Damadolah, Bajaur Agency, by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drones was the result of the spy network’s stepped-up surveillance in this vital corridor. (See Ducking and diving under B-52s Asia Times Online, May 22, 2008, in which the news of the death of the two men was first reported.)

According to some reports, in the past few days, US security and military officials held a top-level summit at a military base in the Qatari capital of Doha to plan an operation to hunt for the al-Qaeda leader. General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Petersen, were reported to have attended the summit.

Last week, Petraeus testified before a US Congressional committee about security in Iraq and warned that members of al-Qaeda based in Pakistan’s tribal areas have planned a new 9-11 attack that they expect to execute before the November elections.