First is the announcement that the US forces in Iraq have captured one of the biggest and most important members of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Good for them! Especially on this day when we’re worried about an NIE that says that Al Qaeda, after six years under heavy attact from US forces, is stronger than ever. The US forces have had Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani in custody since his capture July 4 in Mosul. Two weeks. I wonder a bit about the timing of this announcement, with the Bush Administration under fire over its losing the battle against Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Now we get an Al Qaeda in Iraq leader who is trotted out cliaming very close linkings to Osama bin Laden. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but the timing here is a bit much.

More terrorist news? I don’t know. Tucked into the middle of the previous story about the capture of Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani in my morning Philadelphia Inquirer is a small update on the sentencing of Trent Thomas, who has been convicted of kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi civilian in Hamdania. The placement of this story is worrying to me. I’m not ready to say this criminal act on the part of Trent Thomas is an act of terrorism, but the placement of this story, wrapped within the big story of the capture of a terrorist, suggests that the Hamdania murders were of a terrorist nature, rather than simple, if ugly, crime. Sure, Trent Thomas did wrong, as did his fellow marines, but the placement of the story troubles me greatly, as it suggests a direct relationship between the stories. Sure, they’re both about Iraq, they’re both about violence, but I’m not ready to say they are both about terrorism.

More properly placed next to the story about Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani should be story about Moktada Al-Sadr changing his tactics. Oh, I think we know that al-Sadr’s little private army has carried out both criminal and terrorist activities, and we also know that no tactics on the part of the Bush Administration has been able to get al-Sadr to rein in his troops. After all, that’s what those political solutions were supposed to be about, to share power between all factions so as to blunt the force of those private armies that are tearing Iraq apart. Al-Sadr a terrorist? From the NYTimes:

Mr. Sadr has been working tirelessly to build support at the grass-roots level, opening storefront offices across Baghdad and southern Iraq that dispense services that are not being provided by the government. In this he seems to be following the model established by Hezbollah, the radical Lebanese Shiite group, as well as Hamas in Gaza, with entwined social and military wings that serve as a parallel government.

He has also extended the reach of his militia, the Mahdi Army, one of the armed groups that the White House report acknowledged remain entrenched in Iraq. The militia has effectively taken over vast swaths of the capital and is fighting government troops in several southern provinces. Although the militia sometimes uses brutal tactics, including death squads, many vulnerable Shiites are grateful for the protection it affords.

At the same time, the Mahdi Army is not entirely under Mr. Sadr’s control, and he publicly denounces the most notorious killers fighting in his name. That frees him to extend an olive branch to Sunni Arabs and Christians, while championing the Shiite identity of his political base.

On May 25, in his first public Friday Prayer in months, he explicitly forbade sectarian attacks.

“It is prohibited to spill the blood of Sunnis and Iraqi Christians,” he told Shiites in a much publicized sermon. “They are our brothers, either in religion or in the homeland.”

Almost from the day American troops entered Iraq, the mercurial Mr. Sadr has confounded American and Iraqi politicians alike. He quickly rallied impoverished Shiites in peaceful displays of Shiite strength, as had his father, a prominent cleric. When the Sunni Arab insurgency gained momentum, he raised a Shiite insurgency in direct opposition to the American-backed Iraqi government that had excluded him.

Let’s see, al-Sadr uses Hezbollah tactics, his Mahdi army includes death squads and was started as a part of the Shiite insurgency. That sounds like al-Sadr is in charge of a terrorist faction to me. But you’ll not see al-Sadr as a focus of US surge activities, I’m betting. But so far, al-Sadr has not joined the Iraqi government in a political solution. No success yet in getting al-Sadr to call off the Mahdi army, and no success in bringing al-Sadr into some sort of political solution for Iraq. Terrorism when related to Al-Sadr remains unchecked.

Meanwhile, back in Pakistan, where the Bush Administration has failed miserably in tracking down Al Qaeda, Pakistan’s largest bank is being sued by Marianne Pearl, Daniel Pearl’s widow. Oops, this is in Brooklyn, not Pakistan. She’s suing them for helping to finance terrorism and Al Qaeda. From the AP:

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn, implicates the defendants in the torture and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter in 2002. It alleges Habib Bank Limited of Karachi knowingly provided financial services for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Backed by the bank, terrorists “carried out the kidnapping, ransom, torture, execution and dismemberment of Daniel Pearl and broadcast those images nationwide,” the lawsuit said. The suit seeks unspecified damages for acts it alleges were meant to “emotionally destroy the Pearl family and terrorize, appall and frighten American citizens.”

Also named as defendants in the suit are Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , the imprisoned al-Qaida No. 3 leader and mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 , and an outlawed Islamic charity, the al-Rashid Trust.

The suit claims the trust, which banked with Habib, was a front for Mohammed and al-Qaida that “abetted and conspired” in the Pearl slaying. Pakistan banned the charity earlier this year as part of an effort to dry up terrorist financing.

Took long enough for the US to get Pakistan to dry up the bankrolling of terror in Pakistan, our so-called ally. Heck, Bush has few enough allies as it is, and Musharef’s Pakistan is contributing little to the War on Terror. Indeed, their blind eye policy has helped grow Al Qaeda, if the recent NIE is any indication. That, again, is a result of inaction and ineptness on the part of the Bush Administration. The problem of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan should have been solved long, long ago.

That’s a lot of stories on the terrorism front. None of it, as far as I can tell, is particularly good news. The capoture of Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders in the past has not helped slow down the violence, for sure. Al-Sadr, it seems to me, is still operating unchecked. And the Pakistan situation looks worse and worse.

Of course, I’m a partisan, but it still seems justified, in more than a partisan sense, to lay these developments at the feet of George Bush. Al Qaeda continues to grow in Iraq, by Bush Administration measures. Al Qaeda remains alive and growing in Pakistan, also by Bush Administration measures. And Pakistan itself appears to be an incubator of terror, despite Bush Administration claims that Musharef is our ally.

Oh, one more bit of terrorists in the news! Stop the presses! Big time Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi no longer exists. No, the US surge forces are not taking credit for capturing the guy, long believed to be a spokesman for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. They’ve figured out, finally, that there never was a man named Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.