Those bastards at Al Jazeera who report on Bin Laden so must somehow be connected to Al Qaeda have betrayed their own organization by outing an Al Qaeda cell in Somalia.
What do you expect? A perfect setting: failed states, failed/no government, a country ruled by thuggish warlord more or less. It's a perfect environment for terrorists to roam free. Don't expect a military intervention anytime soon though, unless we have Bin Laden placing calls from Magadishu and walking around saying, "Can you hear me now?". As far as Al-Jazeera reporting about this, I have always said before that people have their own perceptions, and if you want to believe something is already true you seek out information that only proves what you already believe; it's rather a normal human reaction. Instead, I wish people would just say "I don't know, and I will withhold judgement until I know firsthand what I am talking about". What would be so bad about admitting that you personally know nothing about the network, have never watched it, or had any first-hand experience with it? Some prefer to repeat the propoganda fed them instead of learning firsthand what they are talking about; it's a sign of intellectual laziness. But people have opinions about everything, that's just how it is. But you won't see me jumping in on that whole debate about China's military past, because I know very little about that, it's not my area of expertise. Instead, I enjoy learning about it from those who do. Anyways, this is not what the thread is about, I understand, so sorry for derailing it.
I don't know if al jazzholes reporting that al queda is in Somalia does much to prove that it is an unbiased news source. That's not exactly a huge revelation. Kind of like Channel 2 News leading off with The Big Story saying that there's road construction in Houston.
The extent to which Al Qaeda shares power in Somalia is news. The fact that they are there isn't. Al Jazeera is hated by almost every government in the mideast and banned by many. They get that from publishing or airing stories critical of those govts. as well. They are an equal opportunity offender. Of course those govts. didn't attack Al Jazeera on two different occasions and kill a reporter who was on air filing a report.
Just to clarify, though a bit off topic, Al-Qaeda's influence in Somalia is pretty much limited to the amount of money-protection they can provide for people. As a land ruled by extortionist warlords, southern Somalia's people wouldn't be particularly loyal on religious reasons.
Right but the article gives some detail on how involved they are with the warlords, and shows that they had involvement on the attacks on the U.S. in the early 90's. Futher it says that Al Qaeda's involvement with the warlords is helping them get jobs, run training camps and the like.
