Al-Qaeda is seen to be as dangerous as before 9/11

John Diamond and Kevin Johnson of USA Today report,

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say al-Qaeda has become more difficult to stop as its terrorist cells have spread out.

Disrupted by the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has shifted from a centralized organization to smaller, more localized terrorist cells. The cells' obscurity complicates efforts by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement to penetrate them.

As a result, officials say, the group's terrorist plots, which were not easy to uncover in the first place, have become more difficult to thwart. The current al-Qaeda is proving just as deadly as the old. The killing or capture of a few senior al-Qaeda leaders, possibly including Osama bin Laden, has not diminished al-Qaeda's ability to mount attacks against Western targets...

This is essentially the same point the NY Times made, without any follow-up, back in June. Again we find that the "war on terrorism" has been an utter failure, so far. Worse, it has actually complicated -- and made more difficult -- the prospect of fighting and deterring terrorism. Couple this with some other recent evidence and the point becomes even clearer.

Also see a related story in USA Today, "Al-Qaeda changes, as does its threat," by the same authors.