Al Qaeda plans more futile attacks in Saudia Arabia

Saturday al Qaeda claimed that it would continue attacking oil facilities in Saudia Arabia. There big problem is that they do not have the capacity to successfully attack them. The thwarted attack last week was less impressive than Patton's first ever "mechanized attack" during the punitive expedition in Mexico chasing Pancho Villia. Patton bootstrap the use of a couple of automobiles in an attack on a Mexican ranch into a career as a tank commander in World War I and later World War II.

Of course none of al Qaeda's attackers survived the attack. Therein lies one of al Qaeda's problems. There are no experienced human bombs. They are a one shot weapon. But there bigger problem is that they do not have the heavy cavalry needed to penetrate the defenses of the oil facilities. Zarqawi tried to improvise around this deficit by using fire trucks and other heavy trucks in Iraq to act as a blast opening in the defenses of defended position in Iraq, but he too failed. In Saudia Arabia the best al Qaeda can do is a couple of car bombs and that is not enough.

Security at airports has denied them the use of airlines as a weapon. If you look at al Qaeda attacks since 9-11 there most destructive weapons are car bombs and passive IEDs buried on the road. Neither of these are adueqate to attack a defended position. That is one reason why they hardly bother to make attacks on defended positions in Iraq anymore. Their attacks on non combatants and job applicants have backfired on them too.

Their latest attempt in Iraq was on real estate worshipped by some in Samarra. So far they have not gotten the secondary explosion from that event that they wished for. At this point the Iraqis have detained several people in connection with the bombing of the mosque. In the past the Iraqis have made effective use of having televised confessions of captured terrorist. If these guys can be publicly tied to al Qaeda in Iraq it should be devatating to al Qaeda's cause. The sooner those revelations are made, the sooner the emotions of those upset about the bombing can be properly focused.

Update: Instapundit has a transcript from a CNN interview with Iraq's National Security Advisot giving more details on the 10 arrested individuals in Samarra. Apparently four of them were arrested at the site of the mosque and the other six had recently moved to the area. He expects to be releasing information on the investigation soon. The sooner the better. Right now he indicates the evidence is pointing toward al Qaeda.

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