Al Qaeda Smuggled Across Mexican Border

And Obama jokes about building a moat on the border.  The asshat thinks it's funny, the border situation.

Texas Department of Public Safety chief Steve McCraw testified before lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday.

He says the majority of people from terrorist sponsored countries are getting into the U.S. along the Texas border.

He pointed to Ahmed Muhammad Dhakane as one of those terrorists.

He asked for asylum at an international crossing in Brownsville in 2008. Halfway through the request, Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents took a closer look at him. They say he was an Al Qaeda terrorist and human smuggler. Dhakane admits to smuggling seven members of Al Qaeda into the U.S.

This is not an isolated incident.  Here are just a few previous instances of Al Qaeda at our border:

2005- Al-Qaida Operative Nabbed Near Mexican Border

2009 - Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico

2010 - Feds Issue Terror Watch for the Texas/Mexico Border

WTF is so funny chuckles?

Al Qaeda Promises to Kill Chinese Workers - Terrorist Threatens to Sue "Bruno"

I expect a lot more of this. The Chinese are everywhere. Doing their Chinese thing.

Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network has taken up the cause of China’s Muslim Uighur minority with a pledge to attack Chinese workers in northwestern Africa in retaliation for mistreatment by Beijing of its largest Muslim minority.

Al-Qaeda's Algerian-based offshoot, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has issued the call for vengeance, according to the South China Morning Post, which quoted an intelligence report from the London-based risk analysis firm Stirling Assynt.

It would be the first time that bin Laden’s organisation has threatened China or its interests — underlying the risks Beijing faces as it expands its economic investments overseas.

Meanwhile...

Ayman Abu Aita, who is labelled in the movie as a "terrorist group leader," said he was shocked when he learned five days ago the film depicts a homosexual character and contains scenes including full frontal male nudity and graphic homosexual fetish sex.

Aita also slammed Baron Cohen as a "big liar" who "made up stories" when describing to David Letterman the way he met Aita at an undisclosed location. Aita said he is pursuing legal action against Baron Cohen.

Al Qaeda Looking for Volunteers to Sneak Terror Across Mexican Border

I have no doubt this is already happening.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland.

The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times.

The video first aired by the Arabic news network Al Jazeera in February and later posted to several Web sites shows Kuwaiti dissident Abdullah al-Nafisi telling a room full of supporters in Bahrain that al Qaeda is casing the U.S. border with Mexico to assess how to send terrorists and weapons into the U.S.

"Four pounds of anthrax -- in a suitcase this big -- carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there," the recruiter said. "What a horrifying idea; 9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on. One person, with the courage to carry 4 pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then we'll do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real celebration."

Obama is a Black Slave and a Muslim Renegade...According to Al Qaeda

Read the posts here lately. It isn't exactly the world love fest that Obama promised us. Al Qaeda never called Bush a "black slave".

The self-described leader of an al-Qaida front group issued a new audio tape this weekend, deepening the mystery surrounding the identity of the insurgent leader whom the Iraqi government claims to have in custody and whose very existence the U.S. once questioned.

The man purporting to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, issued the usual litany of militant rhetoric against the West in the 40-minute tape that was posted Saturday on militant Web sites.

He criticized Pope Benedict XVI's recent trip to the Middle East, including Israel, condemned the Pakistani army's offensive against the Taliban and called President Barack Obama "a black slave and Muslim renegade."

Report: Obama Working with Al Qaeda Months Ago

Shocking? Not really. He loves Muslims.

Barack Obama was working with Arab intermediaries to establish an unofficial dialogue with Al Qaida long before his election as the 44th U.S. president, according to a report in the upcoming weekly edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com. ShareThis

Al Qaida has offered what has been described as a truce in exchange for a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to the report.

Obama has deemed the U.S. reconciliation with the Muslim world, including Iran, as his main foreign policy goal, sources quoted in the report said. The president has been aided by several Persian Gulf Arab Muslims with ties to Al Qaida's leadership in Pakistan, they said.

On his first day in office, Obama ordered the shutdown of the U.S. Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which where 245 suspected Al Qaida members are detained.

Not the Plague, But a Weapons Experiment Gone Wrong that Killed Al Qaeda

I believe I was the only one who specifically allowed for this possibility yesterday. That's why I continually remind y'all that other bloggers can't carry my jockstrap.

An al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria closed a base earlier this month after an experiment with unconventional weapons went awry, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Monday.

The official, who spoke on the condition he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said he could not confirm press reports that the accident killed at least 40 al Qaeda operatives, but he said the mishap led the militant group to shut down a base in the mountains of Tizi Ouzou province in eastern Algeria.

He said authorities in the first week of January intercepted an urgent communication between the leadership of al Qaeda in the Land of the Maghreb (AQIM) and al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal region of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. The communication suggested that an area sealed to prevent leakage of a biological or chemical substance had been breached, according to the official.

"We don't know if this is biological or chemical," the official said.

The story was first reported by the British tabloid the Sun, which said the al Qaeda operatives died after being infected with a strain of bubonic plague, the disease that killed a third of Europe's population in the 14th century. But the intelligence official dismissed that claim.

40 Al Qaeda Members Killed by the Plague

It's being reported as the plague. I suppose we should be concerned that it may be the byproduct of experimentation of biological weapons.

At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with the disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages.

The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside.

The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East.

It trains Muslim fighters to kill British and US troops.

Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

One security source said: “This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease.

“It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda.”

Bubonic Plague is spread by bites from infected rat fleas. Symptoms include boils in the groin, neck and armpits. In Pneumonic Plague, airborn bacteria spread like flu.

The al-Qaeda epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers. The group, led by wanted terror boss Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.

The extremists supporting madman Osama bin Laden went to Bejaia and Jijel provinces — hoping the plague did not go with them.

A source said: “The emirs (leaders) fear surviving terrorists will surrender to escape a horrible death.”

AQLIM boss Droudkal claims to command around 1,000 insurgents. Training camps are also based in Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria.

AQLIM bombed the UN headquarters in Algiers in 2007, killing 41. Attacks across Algeria last year killed at least 70 people.

In an interview last July, Droudkal boasted his cell was in constant contact with other al-Qaeda “brothers”.

Al Qaeda Destroys Churches and Non-Muslim Graves in Somalia

And the general population seems OK with it.

Somalis Leaving Minnesota to Wage Jihad?

Why do these things always seem to happen in Minnesota?

Young Somali men are vanishing off the streets of the Twin Cities. More than 20 have left in the last few months, and the community fears they’ve gone back to Somalia to fight in a holy war.

They’re known in the Somali community simply at The Missing. More than 20 young Somali men, between the ages of 17 and 22, who have left the Twin Cities in the last few months, without a single word to their families.

The families and community leaders believe the men have gone back to fight in a bloody civil war, in which Al Quiada is a major player.

From multiple sources in the Somali community, FOX 9 has learned eight men are believed to have left on August 1, and another ten on November 4.

Flight itineraries discovered by their families show they left Minneapolis to take the winding trip back, through Dubai, Nairobi and Malindi, Kenya, where they’re believed to have entered Somalia by boat.

At least one mother has received a phone call from her son. He told her he was in Somalia, but would not tell her what he was doing there.

Watch the video report here.

UPDATE: Video report about a Minnesota man who blew himself up during a suicide attack in Somalia last month.

U.S. Kills Al Qaeda Mastermind by Remote Control -- British Government Cries About It

You're welcome UK. Maybe some day, any day, you'll actually do something to help save American lives.

MPs are demanding to know whether the Government knew in advance of a successful U.S. operation to kill a British terror suspect in Pakistan.

Rashid Rauf, 27 - accused of masterminding the 2006 liquid bomb plot which paralysed airports - is said to have been killed in a missile attack early on Saturday.

Late on Friday he was apparently pinpointed at a remote stronghold in Pakistan's tribal badlands bordering Afghanistan. A remote- control 'drone' then flew to Rauf's location - and unleashed three Hellfire missiles, destroying the mud-walled house and killing him and four Al Qaeda henchmen, according to Pakistan intelligence sources.

Labour and Conservative-MPs said the incident raised important questions.

The Labour chairman of the parliamentary committee on human rights, Andrew Dismore, said he would refer the matter to his committee for possible investigation.

Mr Dismore said: 'This is a very serious matter, particularly if the attack was based on intelligence from British security agencies.'

Tory former shadow security minister, and MP for Newark, Patrick Mercer, said: 'This raises the question of how much co-operation the British intelligence agencies provided in what is ultimately the execution of a British subject.

'The Government must explain its future policy in this area.'

However, the Government would be unlikely to admit any involvement in the planned elimination of a British citizen.

UK: Al Qaeda's "Reign of Terror" Inside Prisons Forcing Others to Convert to Islam

Another religion of peace update:

Muslim prisoners have launched a reign of terror inside a top security British jail. The fanatics are forcing fellow inmates to convert to Islam or face punishment beatings.

One man who stood up to the thugs was branded with a lump of hot metal, according to a prison source.

The crisis at Whitemoor jail in Cambridgeshire has led to calls by staff for the 100 Muslim inmates there to be dispersed to other prisons round the country.

Some Al Qaeda supporters have set up a kangaroo court, sitting in judgment on prisoners and ordering punishments, the source said. The violent disciples of Osama Bin Laden have targeted even the toughest non-Muslim prisoners, including killers and rapists.

Concern over the way Whitemoor is being run surfaced last week when it was revealed an Al Qaeda terrorist had been training to be a stand-up comic.

Zia Ul Haq, 29, jailed for 18 years for planning a bombing campaign in London, signed up to an eight-day comedy workshop at the jail.

Pakistan and U.S. Have a Deal on Airstrikes

I think this arrangement has been obvious for some time considering the Pakistanis don't do anything but whine every time we kill people inside their borders. I mean, they don't shoot at us anymore. It also explains the neophyte Obama's comments during the debate that he would strike Al Qaeda in Pakistan even without Pakistan's permission. That is to say, he already knew we had their permission. He was just acting all John Wayne for the cameras. By the way, it doesn't make feel all that safe when Obama and the Washington Post announce our foreign policy strategies to the public.

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

The arrangement coincided with a suspension of ground assaults into Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview last week that he was aware of no ground attacks since one on Sept. 3 that his government vigorously protested.

Officials described the attacks, using new technology and improved intelligence, as a significant improvement in the fight against Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Officials confirmed the deaths of at least three senior al-Qaeda figures in strikes last month.
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Zardari said that he receives "no prior notice" of the airstrikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans "the benefit of the doubt" that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land.

Here's a really cool video that details how the U.S. military works those drones.

Al Qaeda Calls Obama a "House Slave"

I think Al Sharpton called him that too. This sounds way too much like Jeremiah Wright.

In a message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda deputy accused US President-elect Barack Obama of betraying his Muslim roots.

He likened him to a "house slave" - who had chosen to align himself with the "enemies" of Islam.

Zawahiri also criticised Mr Obama - whose father is Muslim - for betraying the Islamic world.

"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America," he said.

Mr Obama was not an "honourable black American" like Malcolm X, he said, but an "abeed al-beit" - a word that translates as house slave but was rendered "house negro" in the message's English subtitles.

The audio was accompanied by footage of a speech by Malcolm X in which he distinguished between "field negroes" who hated their white masters and "house negroes" who, he said, were loyal to them.

CIA Chief: Osama Bin Laden is Alive

So he's alive. But does he have X-Box 360?

Osama bin Laden is alive and "putting a lot of energy into his own security," the director of the CIA, General Michael Hayden, said today.

He also claimed, without providing details, that the US intelligence community had disrupted an attack "that would have rivaled the destruction of 9/11." A senior intelligence official said Hayden was referring to the 2006 liquid bomb on airliners plot that was foiled in London.

"American and its friends have taken the fight to the enemy," Gen. Hayden said in a broad roundup of efforts to fight al Qaeda.

"Al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, but it is a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced," he said.

Without directly referring to the CIA's offensive blitz of unmanned missile attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the CIA boss said the US had successfully isolated the al Qaeda leader bin Laden, referring to him in the present tense.

"He appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he leads," Hayden said in a speech delivered to the Atlantic Council in Washington.

AL QAEDA PLANNING ATTACK ON AMERICA LARGER THAN 9/11 ATTACK

I guess they haven't gotten the memo on hope and change.

OSAMA bin Laden is planning an attack against the United States that will "outdo by far" September 11, an Arab newspaper in London has reported.

And according to a former senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, the terrorist organisation has entered a "positive phase", reinforcing specific training camps around the world that will lead the next "wave of action" against the West.

The warning, on the front page of an Arabic newspaper published in London, Al-Quds Al-Arabi - and widely reported in the major Italian papers - quotes a person described as being "very close to al-Qaeda" in Yemen.

The source also said that during the next few days the terrorist organisation may send a sign of its violent intentions.

The warning has emerged at the same time as publication of a report leaked to The Telegraph newspaper which reveals that a document drawn up by the intelligence branch of the Ministry of Defence says that thousands of extremists are active in the UK.

The document says the operatives are predominantly UK-born and aged between 18 and 30. Many are believed to have been trained in overseas terrorist camps.

Security officials, The Telegraph reports, are convinced al-Qaeda cells will attempt another "spectacular" inside the UK with major transport centres, such as airports and train stations, the most likely targets. Other targets include the Houses of Parliament, Whitehall and Buckingham and St James' palaces, with the threat level described as "severe".

WHY HASN'T AL QAEDA ATTACKED?

This is from Daniel Byman at Slate. He proffers some reasons as to why Al Qaeda may be laying low:

Bin Laden has other fish to fry. Although Americans understandably focus on the threat al-Qaida poses to the United States, from Bin Laden's point of view, we are only one concern among many—even if we are still a favorite target of his rhetoric. Al-Qaida's primary day-to-day focus is currently on events in Pakistan, where the organization is based, and Afghanistan, where it is helping to support the massive insurgency that is battling the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. As if this were not enough, al-Qaida has ambitions in Iraq, the Levant, the Maghreb, and Central Asia, as well as against Israel. These theaters are important to al-Qaida leaders, and many in the organization would prioritize them over attacks in the United States. Even if the United States remains the primary focus of al-Qaida's core leaders, expanding operations in several of these theaters provides the organization with opportunities to strike at America outside the U.S. homeland. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan allow it to showcase one of its preferred methods: support for insurgents.

Al-Qaida's operational capacity is limited. Al-Qaida has re-established a base in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and its operational capacity is growing when compared with the organization's dark days in 2002. Al-Qaida can still plot attacks from Pakistan, and its propaganda is prodigious. But in many respects, Pakistan is a tougher haven than the Taliban's Afghanistan. Unlike Afghanistan in the pre-9/11 era, al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan spend much of their time battling and intimidating government forces, hiding from U.S. Predator strikes, or otherwise focusing on their daily survival.

U.S. government efforts at home are paying off. The Department of Homeland Security is much-maligned, but at least it is trying to stop jihadists from entering the United States. And trying counts. The FBI has made numerous arrests on terrorism charges (often, we find out later, on quite thin grounds), suggesting that it is aggressive in going after potential jihadist threats at home.

Aggressive intelligence efforts abroad keep us safer at home. More important than strictly domestic efforts, U.S. intelligence is working with its counterparts around the world to disrupt al-Qaida, making it harder for the organization to plan and mount sustained operations. Remember, preparations for the 9/11 attack occurred not only in the United States and Afghanistan but also in Germany, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and other countries. Such a global plot would be far more difficult to orchestrate today. Senior leaders would be more likely to be killed, and junior operatives would be more likely to be arrested.

Al-Qaida wants to outdo 9/11. Bin Laden does not think small, and he consistently seeks terrorism "spectaculars" against the United States (for example, the plot to bomb multiple trans-Atlantic flights from the United Kingdom, which was foiled in August 2006). A spectacular attack might inflict mass casualties like 9/11, or it might involve fewer casualties but more publicity, such as an operation involving chemical weapons. This ambition may have dissuaded Bin Laden from making a low-level strike before the election. He may care more about a successful spectacular than he does about striking on or by a particular date.

There is no "al-Qaida of the United States." Even if the U.S. government were not more aggressive at home and abroad, al-Qaida's ability to operate in the United States is limited. In contrast to Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and many other countries, the United States does not have a significant jihadist network within its borders. Many of those arrested in the United States on terrorism charges were incompetent dreamers who had little or no ties to the al-Qaida core, in contrast to their counterparts in Europe and the Arab world. Infiltrators that Bin Laden sends to the United States would find it hard to obtain local assistance as they prepare for an attack. The few radicalized American Muslims might still attack in al-Qaida's name, but the likelihood is far lower than in many other countries, and the skill level of the attackers would probably be limited, making a 9/11-scale operation particularly unlikely.

SYRIANS ARE PISSED ABOUT U.S. RAID THAT KILLED AL QAEDA MEMBERS

Bring the noise you ignorant bastards! Bush still has a few months in office. Gonna be more to come. Read this pro-Syrian piece. I post just so you know. Not because I give a crap about these people.

WAS U.S. RAID INTO SYRIA TO GET AL MASRI?

More details of the daring of the alleged raid into Syria by U.S. special forces.

Syrian officials claim the US military conducted a cross-border raid into Syria from Iraqi territory.

The raid was reportedly carried out in the town of Sukkariya near Abu Kamal in eastern Syria. According to witnesses, four US helicopters crossed the border and two of the helicopters landed to drop off special operations forces.

Syrian television claimed nine people were killed and 14 were wounded during the raid. Syria claimed of those killed and wounded were construction workers.

The raid occurred close to the main border crossing point between Iraq and Syria. Al Qaeda declared an Islamic Emirate in Al Qaim right along the Iraqi border during the spring of 2005. Al Qaeda terrorized the local tribes and attempted to institute a Taliban-like rule. Al Qaim was the main infiltration route into Iraq until US Marines and Iraqi troops launched a campaign to dislodge al Qaeda from the region.

The US has neither confirmed nor denied the operation took place. If the attack occurred, it would have been carried out by Task Force 88, the special operations hunt-killer teams assigned to target al Qaeda operatives as well as Shia terrorists in Iraq.

Syria has sheltered Iraqi insurgents and foreign al Qaeda fighters, and allowed the groups to run camps inside the country. Syria also facilitates the movement of foreign fighters into the country and across the border into Iraq.

If the raid occurred, the US military must have detected a senior member of al Qaeda in Iraq in the region. Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, is reported to have left the country earlier this year after the terror group lost its sanctuaries in Diyala province.

The US military may be closing in on al Qaeda’s senior leadership. US forces killed Abu Qaswarah, al Qaeda in Iraq's second in command, during a raid in Mosul in northern Iraq on Oct. 15. The military has also killed and captured numerous al Qaeda leader and couriers over the past several weeks. The information obtained during these raids help to paint a picture of al Qaeda’s command structure inside of of Iraq as well as in neighboring countries.

HOW AL-QAEDA RECRUITS KAMIKAZES

"They are usually selected among drug addicted people with weak personality and those suffering psychological troubles, in addition to complex old men, people suffering depression and youngsters." This sounds an awful lot like how Obama recruits his people.

Investigations conducted by security services with arrested terrorists and people involved in terror support networks, concluded that Al-Qaeda adopts many methods in view of recruiting new elements, including giving them inducements, financing their projects and even allocating them apartments.

The same investigations revealed that terror groups usually appoint agents in different cities and villages, the mission of which is collecting as much information as possible about people targeted to be recruited later. The terror agents transfer the collected information to the commandment of the terror organization, which, in turn, make a comprehensive examination on the collected information, and select the right people. Yet, they would, either, be recruited to join suicide bombers squad, or join logistic support networks.

As far as people selected to join terror support groups, their criminal records should be clear, as to avoid raising suspicions around them. Usually, they are seduced by financial inducements or fixing their social problems, in exchange of collecting special information, tracking movement of some people and delivering “goods” to unknown people. However, some of them realise, after a while, that they have been involved in a terror network and could not back off fearing from being subject to elimination by Al-Qaeda.

Concerning the suicide attackers, they are usually selected among drug addicted people with weak personality and those suffering psychological troubles, in addition to complex old men, people suffering depression and youngsters. These people are easy targets when it comes to persuade them with Takfiri ideas (defining other Muslims as disbelievers) and making them believing on Jihad, through teaching them wrong statements about Islam, while getting profit from their weak religious morals and knowledge.

US IN BIG PUSH TO GET BIN LADEN

From NPR:

NPR has learned that the raid by helicopter-borne U.S. Special Operations forces in Pakistan last week was not an isolated incident but part of a three-phase plan, approved by President Bush, to strike at Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaida leadership.

The plan calls for a much more aggressive military campaign, said one source, familiar with the presidential order, which gives the green light for the military to take part in the operations. The plan represents an 11th-hour effort to hammer al-Qaida until the Bush administration leaves office, two government officials told NPR.

"Definitely, the gloves have come off," said a source who has been briefed on the plan. "This was only Phase 1 of three phases."

A second source said that lawmakers on Capitol Hill were briefed on the new plan shortly before The New York Times broke the story this week about the Special Operations raid from Afghanistan into Pakistan. The source also said that CIA personnel from around the world were being pulled into the Afghan-Pakistan border area, an intelligence-community "surge" to go after bin Laden and other al-Qaida figures.

The raid last week by an elite U.S. Navy SEAL team was a planned operation that took place miles inside Pakistan and led to the deaths of at least nine and as many as 20 individuals — some of them civilians. Sources say the raid was part of a "snatch and grab" operation aimed at Taliban or al-Qaida figures.

A powerful AC-130 gunship, essentially a flying battleship, was used in the operation. The SEAL team members were flown out of Pakistan by helicopter into Afghanistan. A western military source says a SEAL team remains on standby for similar missions on short notice.

"They were definitely after al-Qaida forces," said one of the sources. "But the bleedover between those two," he added, referring to the Taliban, "is significant."