Since we failed at exterminating them in Afghanistan and Pakistan early ( and put almost all our attention on Iraq for a long time), they migrated: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0521/p01s02-usgn.html Scattered Al Qaeda harder to target US raises terror raised to "high" as recent bombings indicate the network is teaming up with local radicals worldwide. By Faye Bowers | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON – The portrait of Al Qaeda emerging one week after some of the worst terrorist bombings since 9/11 is of a group that is decentralizing and setting up bases of operation in new regions - to the considerable detriment of antiterror efforts. Although President Bush has said at least half of Al Qaeda's leadership has been removed, many experts think it's the less important half and that the organization is becoming more active in exploiting local conflicts as well as plotting new attacks. In the end, the US military's disruption of Al Qaeda's base of operations in Afghanistan has had the result of forcing remnants of the organization to fan out around the world, making it harder for US intelligence officials to track cells and foil hits. . . . The new Al Qaeda lieutenants But intelligence officials and experts alike say that the key members - the most intelligent, capable, and dangerous - have evaded capture. One of the most notorious is Saif al-Adel, whom European and US intelligence officials believe has assumed the mantle of military leadersince Abu Zubaydah's capture in Pakistan in March 2002. Mr. Adel was a member of Egypt's Special Forces, as have been all past leaders of Al Qaeda's military wing. They also were members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), brought into Al Qaeda in 1998 by Osama bin Laden's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri. "Only one of the original EIJ operatives in Al Qaeda's upper echelon [Mohammed Atef] has been killed," says the RAND Corp.'s Hoffman. "Accordingly, the movement's core competency arguably remains in tact."
