Al Qaeda Behind Bhutto Assassination

According to an article in The Sun online, the Interior Ministry of Pakistan claims that there is "irrefutable evidence" that Al Qaeda was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. I would prefer to hear that this information has been verified by the United States government, if that's possible, because I trust the honesty of the Interior Minsitry of Pakistan as much as I trust the ethics of Saudi Arabia's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice...which is to say, not at all.

But if this proves to be true, it should be a wakeup call for anyone who thinks that the War on Islamic Terrorism - as it should be called - is overblown hype and fearmongering. I just finished reading Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11." These barbarians are in this fight for the long haul, and believe that this struggle might take decades. Bin Laden and his band of barbarians believe that their years of fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan collapsed that empire, and that eventually they will cause the same fate to befall America, which they see as the largest impediment to creating a new Islamic caliphate. In their view, destabalizing Muslim states that are not Islamist - and even worse, allied with the U.S. - will drive more recruits to their cause and allow them to overthrow these "takfir" regimes.

We've become so buried in the quagmire of Iraq that our focus has been turned away from stamping out the Islamist terrorists. Iraq was at most minimally associated with Al Qaeda, but now has become the quicksand of the majority of our military resources. Meanwhile, Bin Laden, Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and countless other Al Qaeda and Taliban are likely hiding in the Wild West that is the tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border (official site). Bhutto offered hope that Pakistan might fulfill its promise to take control of these areas and root out the terrorists.

I can only hope that this assassination strengthens our resolve to continue this fight, especially past the presidential election in November. By this I don't necessarily mean Iraq, but rather, the larger war against Islamist Terrorism. And I hope that Pakistan will finally root out the barbarians at the gate. If not, another 9/11 will be inevitable.