Surprise! You thought it was Bush again, didn’t you? Ah, you need to pay less attention to the mainstream media.

But, yes, it’s true. Al Qaeda just ain’t having a good quarter here, whether you look in Pakistan or Iraq.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Sympathy for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and the Taliban has dropped sharply in Pakistan amid a wave of deadly violence, according to the results of a recent opinion poll.

…

According to the poll results only 24 percent of Pakistanis approved of bin Laden when the survey was conducted last month, compared with 46 percent during a similar survey in August.

Backing for al-Qaida, whose senior leaders are believed to be hiding along the Pakistani-Afghan border, fell to 18 percent from 33 percent.

Support for the Taliban, whose Pakistani offshoots have seized control of much of the lawless border area and have been engaged in a growing war against security forces, dropped by half to 19 percent from 38 percent, the results said.

Others smilin’: QandO | Jules Crittenden |

Update 1:05PM CST: Figured I’d go ahead and lump this other big ‘bad news for the baddies’ story in here so that you might enjoy a warm roasting Osama with your death penalty story. …say what? Death penalty story?

That’s right!

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military announced sweeping criminal charges Monday against six top al-Qaeda suspects, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, for their roles in the 2001 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and thrust the U.S. into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann says military prosecutors will request that the defendants face the death penalty if convicted under the military tribunal system.

“These charges allege a long term, highly sophisticated, organized plan by al-Qaeda to attack the United States of America,” Hartmann, the legal adviser to the tribunal system, told reporters.

As part of the “highly sophisticated” plot, Hartmann says all six defendants will be charged in a broad conspiracy that resulted in the suicide hijackings, killing 2,973 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and in Shanksville, Pa.

Among the terror-related charges detailed at a Pentagon briefing, the six also were accused of “murder in violation of the law of war.”

People can squabble over the timing, but I’m assuming they’ve got all the information they think they can out of these guys. Now they should be relegated to the trash bin of history.

More smilin’: Hot Air | GINA COBB | JunkYardBlog | lgf |

Update 1:51PM CST: Here’s another catch. Good day in this department.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 12:51 PM and is filed under Pakistan, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.