US troops told there are only one hundred al-Qaeda in Afghanistan

Afghanistan News.Net
Thursday 3rd December, 2009

Intelligence officials in the US have been angered by suggestions that President Obama is sending 30,000 more troops to fight only one hundred al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.

Responding to an ABC News story that mentioned to the intelligence community estimate on the number of Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan, US intelligence officials described the story as an irresponsible assessment.

The officials have argued that even though the al-Qaeda numbers are small, their influence with the Taliban makes them far more harmful than their numbers would indicate.

They said while only about one hundred al-Qaeda operatives remain in Afghanistan, their real centre is Pakistan, where their leadership works tightly with leaders of the Afghan Taliban.

The assessment has been referred to in the US as "Obama’s secret," with some media pundits saying the president deliberately omitted mentioning the numbers in his speech on Tuesday night.

Top officials on Wednesday defended Obama’s surge decision, arguing that the US military needs to take on the Taliban as a way to keep Afghanistan from falling under al-Qaeda influence.

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