MIDDLE EAST: Listening to Al Qaeda

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With the world mostly focused on the ongoing violence in Iraq and the threat of confrontation between Iran and the United States, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda — which sparked the confrontation between the West and the Islamic world — have almost slipped into the background.

But several stories in this week's Los Angeles Times zeroed in on Al Qaeda's operations, funding and history. What emerges is a picture of an organization, hiding in the hinterlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, struggling mightily to stay relevant and robust.

The Times' Sebastian Rotella wrote an in-depth report on an emerging leader of the organization — Abu Ubaida al Masri, an obscure Egyptian explosives expert who has become Al Qaeda's "chief of external operations."

He's been behind several botched operations abroad, and his foibles as well as his minor successes show Al Qaeda's weaknesses:"
Babylon & Beyond