Al-Qaeda Second-in-Command Ayman Al-Zawahiri: The Only Hope for Palestine is to Depose the 'Arab Zionists'

In a new 1-hour 3-minute audio recording, Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri reaffirms Al-Qaeda's basic strategy regarding Palestine and promised imminent victory in Afghanistan, and addresses words of praise and encouragement to the jihadist groups in North Africa, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The video, dated Rajab 1431 (June-July 2010), was produced by Al-Qaeda's media wing, Al-Sahab, and posted on jihadist websites on July 19, 2010. Despite the date shown on the release, it is likely that Al-Zawahiri's audio was recorded earlier, since there is no mention of the Gaza flotilla incident, which took place in late May.

Al-Zawahiri opens with the "good tidings" that victory is near in Afghanistan. He ridicules the U.S. for its early confidence in the Marjah operation and for its hopes that the arrest of senior commander Mullah Baradar would adversely affect the Taliban, saying that these hopes were crushed by the Taliban's stiff resistance in Marjah and subsequent martyrdom operations in Kandahar and Kabul. He also accuses the Arab and Western media of underreporting the Taliban's achievements – contrasting it with the wide coverage given to Hizbullah if it so much as fires a missile – and likewise blasts Turkey and a number of Arab states for their support for the coalition in Afghanistan, as well as 'ulema who have ruled that such support is permissible.

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How to win the cyber-war we're losing

The United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are losing. It's that simple. As the most wired nation on Earth, we offer the most targets of significance, yet our cyber-defenses are woefully lacking. The problem is not one of resources; even in our current fiscal straits, we can afford to upgrade our defenses. The problem is that we lack a cohesive strategy to meet this challenge.

The stakes are enormous. To the extent that the sprawling U.S. economy inhabits a common physical space, it is in our communications networks. If an enemy disrupted our financial and accounting transactions, our equities and bond markets or our retail commerce -- or created confusion about the legitimacy of those transactions -- chaos would result. Our power grids, air and ground transportation, telecommunications, and water-filtration systems are in jeopardy as well.

What is the right strategy for this most modern of wars? Look to history. During the Cold War, when the United States faced an existential threat from the Soviet Union, we relied on deterrence to protect ourselves from nuclear attack. Later, as the East-West stalemate ended and nuclear weapons proliferated, some argued that preemption made more sense in an age of global terrorism. The cyber-war mirrors the nuclear challenge in terms of the potential economic and psychological effects. So, should our strategy be deterrence or preemption? The answer: both. Depending on the nature of the threat, we can deploy aspects of either approach to defend America in cyberspace.

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