10 years after the US embassy attacks, al Qaeda is winning

Nothing on God’s Earth would persuade me to wish al Qaeda a “Happy Anniversary”, ten years to the day since its simultaneous attacks on US Embassies in the East African capital cities of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, at the cost of more than 200 lives, most of them African civilians.

Are they winning? Sadly, I think they are. The operational strength of AQ and its affiliates ebbs and flows – that is in the nature of a global franchise that has moved beyond the old-fashioned IRA cellular structure to something much looser and more organic. But the West has undoubtedly marched into the elephant trap dug by Osama bin Laden.

There was an item on this morning’s Today programme about the ten year anniversary, and then a sombre discussion of the conviction of bin Laden’s former driver by a military court at Guantanamo Bay and the damage done to America’s international image by such spectacles (true enough).