Seventeen years after Sept. 11, Al Qaeda may be stronger than ever

[TomSea]

Obviously, this is a bit opinionated with analysis. It may be so. I guess again, "MAY be stronger" is key.  Per the map in the article, sure, they have a presence in that area.

Seventeen years after Sept. 11, Al Qaeda may be stronger than ever
By Nabih Bulos
Sep 10, 2018
| Beirut

In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, the United States set out to destroy Al Qaeda. President George W. Bush vowed to “starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.”

Seventeen years later, Al Qaeda may be stronger than ever. Far from vanquishing the extremist group and its associated “franchises,” critics say, U.S. policies in the Mideast appear to have encouraged its spread.


(Los Angeles Times)

What U.S. officials didn’t grasp, said Rita Katz, director of the SITE intelligence group, in a recent phone interview, is that Al Qaeda is more than a group of individuals. “It’s an idea, and an idea cannot be destroyed using sophisticated weapons and killing leaders and bombing training camps,” she said.

Read more at: http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-al-qaeda-survive-20180910-story.html

Attacks on the West? Not so much. Watch them like a hawk all the same. What are we doing in Africa? There's your answer.

[TomSea]

How can al Qaeda (of the Peninsula AQAP) be fighting the Houthis in Yemen, the Houthis are Iran's proxies there and yet, we are told (and there is convincing evidence of it), that Iran has aided Al Qaeda in terrorist acts.

"Iran has had an operational relationship with al-Qaeda since they blew up Khobar Towers in 1996. Any intelligence official who worked on this question can tell you that. And the open source material is not exactly thin on the ground. Not much more to say."
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton (Sept. 8, 2018)