Al Qaida

The recent National Intelligence Estimate painted a troubling picture. While al-Qaida is resurgent, with an "undiminished" intent to attack the U.S. homeland, international counterterrorism cooperation is likely to wane as 9/11 grows more distant. Revitalizing the United Nations' counterterrorism role would be an important step to bolster the international effort against al-Qaida. The United Nations has demonstrated that it can play a significant counterterrorism role. Indeed, for the first few years after 9/11, it was at the center of the fight against terrorism.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Al-Qaida in Iraq vowed yesterday to carry out "major attacks" in Iraq to avenge the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and to demonstrate that the network remains a force to be reckoned with despite the loss of its leader. In a statement posted on the Web site used by al-Qaida and other insurgent groups, the organization said it held a meeting of its top leaders and that they resolved to "prepare major attacks that will shake the enemy like an earthquake and rattle them out of sleep."

WASHINGTON - Americans' opposition to the Iraq war continues to grow, with 69 percent of the public saying the Bush administration launched the war based on incorrect assumptions, according to a survey released yesterday. In a finding that mirrors other recent polling, 49 percent said the decision to go to war was wrong, compared with 46 percent who said the administration was right, according to the survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes and by Knowledge Networks of Menlo Park, Calif.

WASHINGTON --Vice President Dick Cheney, lashing out at Democrats for the first time since his top deputy's felony conviction, resumed his controversial claims yesterday that the war in Iraq is the central front in the worldwide U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Cheney linked Iraq and al-Qaida even though post-invasion reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the presidential Commission on Intelligence Capabilities found no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida before the U.S.-led invasion on March 19, 2003.

COLIN POWELL is blowing it. The task handed to the secretary of state was to convince the world, and in particular America's allies, of the justice of the U.S. case against Iraq. On Feb. 5, at the United Nations, he gave it his best shot - but since then hopes of forging an international consensus have shriveled. In recent days it has come to seem as if Mr. Powell is grasping at straws - or, more accurately, at one straw. The al-Qaida straw. On Tuesday, he claimed that an apparent tape of Osama bin Laden cheering on the Iraqis proved an actual connection between them.

LONDON -- As usual for the morning rush hour, the London Underground was packed with commuters yesterday, as it was exactly a year before when four British Muslims boarded three trains and a bus to blow up themselves and 52 others. The terror attack, the worst in London's history, has not changed the essential rhythms or habits of the city, but it has left deep scars. Yesterday, London and the rest of Britain marked the anniversary with low-key remembrances, some public, some private.

ATLANTA -- We just don't believe them anymore. We no longer take seriously the warnings of terrorist threats coming from White House functionaries. So, this month, when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune about his "gut feeling" that the nation faces an increased risk of a terrorist attack this summer, nobody paid much attention. They've frightened us so many times before with false alarms and phony threats and hyped intelligence that we've stopped paying attention.

WASHINGTON - On July 5, 2001, as threats of an impending attack against the United States were pouring into Washington, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Andrew H. Card Jr., the president's chief of staff, summoned top officials from many domestic agencies to a meeting in the White House Situation Room. Even though the warnings focused mostly on threats overseas, Rice and Card wanted the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and other agencies put on alert inside the United States.

THE BOMBINGS in London yesterday inspire shock, grief and rage. This of course is what the bombers desire. They deliberately play upon the normal human sympathy of the public - sympathy they themselves are conspicuously lacking - to magnify the effects of a few pounds of explosives. At least 37 innocent people died horrible deaths yesterday, and scores of others were grievously mangled, so that someone could make a point. It's death as propaganda, and it's sickening. British authorities believe the subway and bus bombings were the work of al-Qaida.

The World An al-Qaida group beheaded American engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr., posting grisly photographs of the hostage's severed head. Johnson's body was found outside Riyadh. A sport utility vehicle packed with artillery shells blew up in Baghdad in a crowd of people waiting to volunteer for the Iraqi military, killing at least 35 and wounding 138. At least a dozen people were killed and 13 wounded in a suicide car bombing outside a U.S. military base in Iraq last weekend. This came on the heels of the assassination of two high-ranking officials of the interim government as well as bombings, mortar and rocket strikes, and sabotage of power facilities.