Some links to chew on

There have been a lack of posts as of late so I want to apologize for that, I will try to work on it. Not much has really caught my eye in the news and no interesting or relevant stories from my deployments have come to mind recently.

That said, here are a couple of news links you may find interesting:

First, the estimated number of Shabaab members is oddly specific. 7,733 fighters to be exact. I wondered who did that estimation and why they stated some exact figure as opposed to "around 7,700" but apparently the number comes from an actual headcount done by Shabaab.

In case you were wondering, the number of insurgents in my area of Iraq was only asked of me a couple of times, once in Mosul and then another once or twice in Diyala. Being the support battalion intel officer in Mosul I only had a vague clue and brigade was estimating their size at around 3,000 (small brigade size which seems high). Of course, intel guys always over estimate strength of the enemy. Even if most of the insurgents included in that number were part timers you'd think they could have put of a better fight than they did. Most likely it was around 1,500 insurgents in the entire Ninewah Province broken into several different organizations competing with eachother for resources.

In Diyala it was a much smaller number. Based on attacks, the number of known cells, and the known personalities I believe we had at most 100-150 assholes running around...and very few of them coordinated or were active at any one time. Still, they were a pain in the ass.

The second article states that Al Qaeda's 2nd in command, Abu Yahya al Libi, was killed in an airstrike in Pakistan. At least according to US intelligence he was killed. Some Pakistani Taliban sources are denying he was killed so we won't know for certain until AQ officially announces it, if they choose to. If true, it's a good blow to the organization who is down to essentially Ayman al Zawahiri for leadership.

I've stated before that I believe Al Qaeda is a dying, if not dead, organization. The problem, however, are the affliate Al Qaeda's in Yemen, North and East Africa, and Central Asia. We may have slain the wolf, but her cubs are growing up...and are pissed off.