Are Al Qaeda's Days Numbered?

Report: Al Qaeda's Days are Numbered -- USA Today

National Intelligence Council: 'By 2030, we believe the Islamic terrorism cycle will have exhausted itself'.

Al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups are in the waning years of their effectiveness and will likely fizzle out of relevance in the coming decades, according to a new intelligence report.

Historically, terrorist organizations have a lifespan that only extends for 20 to 40 years, according to the National Intelligence Council, referencing its new report that studies likely shifts in global security and politics by 2030. Those who had turned to terrorist groups for answers generally realize during this timeframe solutions don't exist through violent extremism.

"By 2030, we believe the Islamic terrorism cycle will have exhausted itself," NIC's Mathew Burrows told reporters on Monday, speaking about the newly released "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds"

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Update: U.S. Intelligence Report Says Islamist Terrorism ‘Could End by 2030’ -- CNS

My Comment: Radical islam has been at war with itself or with it's neighbors for the past 1,300 years .... I definitely do not see this changing in the next 17 years.

How Al Qaeda Has Changed In The Past Few Years

Al Qaeda In The Age Of Obama -- Con Coughlin

In the absence of American leadership in the Arab world, jihadist groups are filling the vacuum.

While the Obama administration continues to prevaricate over its response to the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi in September, al Qaeda has wasted no time in its attempt to establish a foothold in post-Gadhafi Libya.

In the past few weeks, intelligence officials say they have identified an upsurge in al Qaeda activity as the terrorist organization seeks to link up with newly formed Islamist affiliates in Libya. Al Qaeda has a long history of basing its terrorist operations in failed Islamic states, starting with Afghanistan in the late 1990s. More recently it has established fiefs in Somalia, Yemen and northern Mali, among others, and is seeking to take advantage of political turmoil in Iraq, Syria and Jordan.

Now the terror group is working to exploit endemic lawlessness in Libya, where an estimated 1,700 armed groups have emerged in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime last year.

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My Comment: I concur .... this is not Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda but something else .... and potentially just as dangerous.

Update: Al Qaeda expansion in Libya part of long-term terror vision? -- Catherine Herridge, FOX News

Update #2: The resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq ... in Iraq, and Syria, and Jordan, and Libya and ... -- Long war Journal

Is Al-Qaeda Defeated?

CNN national-security analyst Peter Bergen

Is Al-Qaeda Defeated? -- Clifford D. May, NRO

Its ideology is not — and ideology matters.

At the Aspen Security Forum this past summer, Peter Bergen, CNN’s intrepid national-security analyst and a director at the New America Foundation, gave a talk titled: “Time to Declare Victory: Al Qaeda Is Defeated.”

Since then, AQ and/or its affiliates have launched lethal attacks on American diplomatic compounds in Libya and Yemen, hoisted an al-Qaeda flag above the U.S. embassy in Cairo, resurged in Iraq, and put boots on the ground in Syria. They have bombed Christian churches in Nigeria and the mosques of Sufi Muslims in Mali. They have battled African Union troops in Somalia. Within the last week, Taliban terrorists shot Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old Pakistani, for the “crime” of advocating education for girls, and bombed the office of moderate tribal elders in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 17 people.

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My Comment: I have been saying the same thing for years .... ideology maters. In Al Qaeda's case .... defining, confronting, and defeating Islamic extremism is a must. As to how this will be done .... my hopes rest on having more people like this one in speaking out, than any policy, speech, or action from the U.S. government.