The countries-of-origin all have a high level of both domestic terror activity as well as camps and support for international terrorists.

The distinction between the domestics and the internationals is blurry. More on that below.

His face is well-known, as is the reward for his capture. If he stays in a remote mountain area, he can be protected by hundreds of fanatics guarding the approaches through nearly impassable terrain

And he's quite tall. I think it's more likely that he's very isolated. I don't think he's surrounded by hundreds of fanatics, because more people means more risk. Risk someone will boast, risk someone will betray, risk someone will forget about the forrest of radio receivers on Diego Garcia. He's probably not moving much, either.

As for Al Qaeda rank-and-file, I can only continue to cite the many reports that there are an estimated 1,000 of them still operating in the "AfPak" area; and I haven't come across any reports to dispute that.

Well, what we really need to do is come to some sort of consensus on what al Qaeda is and isn't. Al Qaeda is an organization made up of organizations. Some affiliates are closer to al Qaeda than others. Al Qaeda seems to rely on alot of cheap muscle from orginizations in Pakistan, Yemen, and Algeria. There's another class of organization, the "national" organizations, as in Algeria, Philippenes, Chechnya. These groups are given money, usually through Saudi "charities" , or through various Saudi princes working as bag-men. (The late owner of the Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem appears to be one of these. Saudi newspapers said he died of "thirst.") Technical assistance in making is usually rendered to these organizations from higher-up, as these tend to be more "military" in nature.

Then there's what I call al Qaeda's "outer core." The courriers, bag-men, explosives experts, chem/bio experts, sleepers. These men are highly dangerous, these are the guys that we need to nail.

Qaeda's inner core is Osama himself, Afghan war veterans who Osama trusts completely, and probably senior members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which al Qaeda merged with in 1998. One of Osama's sons married a daughter of al Zawahiri in late 2001 - one of the last video tapes of Osama we have.

So are these 1,000 part of Al Qaeda's core (inner or outer)? Or are they something substantially less - a member of Hekmatyar's hard boyz, for example. And it doesn't help that al qaeda seems to deliberately muddy the waters.Is there a practical difference between the GPSC (sometimes SGCP) and the GIA? Between MILF and Abu Sayyef? Both of these are examples of al Qaeda affiliates that operate on the same territory. There was apparently anal Qaeda summit in April 2003. It looks like bin Laden told a collection of various, but not all, affiliates "attack." We've had suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, a rock concert in Moscow, a fairly large battle in Zabul, Afghanistan, some activity up in Uzbekistan, and four large bombings in Iraq, plus a myriad of smaller actions. (I don't agree with much of what is in that link - more on that below.)

Arab and Western intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that Iraq has become the major new magnet for anti-American "Jihadis" from around the world. The collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the presence of a large number of American troops in Iraq has made Iraq the key battleground fo"r the war between Islamic extremists and the United States and its allies.

A source close to radical Islamic factions confirmed to ABCNEWS that militants planned for months to flood Jihadis into Iraq during and after the U.S. military campaign. U.S. intelligence officials confirm that intercepts and other intelligence indicate that large numbers of Islamic militants are flooding into Iraq from Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, exploiting the largely unprotected borders.

Intelligence analysts have taken particular notice of a faction of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) from Algeria that has made its way to Baghdad. These Sunni Jihadis are said to be forming tactical alliances with clans around Baghdad who also subscribe to Sunni Islamic belief and, apparently, with form er Iraqi intelligence agents.

Al qaeda is on the offensive right now. So when I see stuff like this report or the Fox News report that I originally cited, my antennae quiver, because I'm looking for stuff like this already.

I'm actually not spending much time writing this. It's looking for all of the links. I read a fairly high volume of news stories each day, in addition to having read a few books on the subject at hand. I assure you that my views aren't made up from thin air, but I haven't been keeping the links.

Moving on...

Flypaper"...cute term, but I have to discount any such assertion made after the war. It's the sort of thing that Bush could have said before the war with as much impunity as he says it now. Revealing that uncharacteristically cunning strategy ahead of time wouldn't change a thing, for all the reasons you give. It's unquestionably just one more desperate shot in the barrage of rationalizations being thrown out there in the desperate hope that one will stick.

When two or more pundits of the same persuasion use identical words, I don't take it as validating the position at all; rather, it heightens my suspicion that their words are being orchestrated or, at a minimum, that they're simply propogating the same meme in the usual punditry circle-jerk.

I agree that some sources are more reliable than others. I'm very aware of that.

In this case, Warren implied that people in the Bush administration knew this was going to happen. Sullivan explicitly stated it. I don't think that they are liars. Both men tilt conservative, yes, but they're also independent thinkers. They're not afraid to criticize when they think it's justified.

If I disregard every left-leaning source as unreliable, then I'm going to have real problems communicating with some members of the BB. I linked to a piece above that I don't agree with, in large part. I've explained I don't think bin Laden is in Northern Pakistan, and I certianly don't agree with the final bit:

Will he ever be caught? For more than a year, Afghanistan has been sinking deeper into poverty, chaos and despair while the White House focuses on Iraq.

Afghanistan's economy grew by almost one-third last year.

Sometimes you've got to pan for a few hours before finding any gold. This is an example of an unreliable source that nonetheless contains rich nuggets of truth. Sometimes they'll post a real chamber-pot-clanger of an analysis, or post a headline that's not accurate (OOOPS!). I found this account fascinating, but is it true? Well, some of it is corroborated here. I find this website unreliable, too, but for totally different reasons than Debka.

And there are still other reports that I haven't seen anywhere else, but that just simply ring true. Sometimes you've got to trust your instincts. If I wasn't so tired, I'd go back to "panning for gold", and say something clever about iron pyrite.

I need to respond to your last paragraph, but it is late. I'll just say that the jihadis hate us already, it's the other 90% of the population we have to worry about. And there are significant tactical differences in the problems the Israelis face. We're defending two rivers surrounded by desert, and all of the Israeli/Palestinian stuff is in built-up areas.