Nearly one year ago U.S. Navy SEALs swooped into a Pakistani compound, killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and then dumped his body into the Arabian Sea. The master terrorist is dead but his ideologically inspired franchises continue to threaten global peace in spite of a senior Obama administration official’s claim that “The war on terror is over.”

Bin Laden evaded capture for nearly a decade until the pre-dawn hours of May 2, 2011 when SEAL Team Six raided the terrorist’s heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  The commandos flew away with the terrorist’s body and a treasure trove of intelligence. 

That intelligence, according to James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, demonstrated that bin Laden’s roughly six years of isolation made him almost irrelevant to his terrorist network. His importance slipped significantly, Clapper told Voice of America, even though he continued to hatch new plots and issue aspirational and delusional guidance.

Clapper said bin Laden evidently believed al Qaeda’s ideology was sidelined by the “Arab Spring” movement which is installing Islamic governments across the Middle East and North Africa.   But bin Laden should have been encouraged because countries like Egypt are falling to global Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Salafists which gave rise to the likes of al Qaeda.  Besides, al Qaeda adapted to challenges by diversifying its network, which today makes it larger and stronger than ever.

Al Qaeda’s franchised global threat is stronger today, which defies the Obama administration’s naive wish — “The war on terror is over.” And while bin Laden’s radical Islamic ideology continues to inspire a global network, the only significant change post bin Laden is that al Qaeda’s core leadership is no longer operationally in charge.

Rather, the decentralized al Qaeda-inspired network of franchises pledge cooperation among themselves, share money and weapons and often train together.  They are not likely to pull-off massive attacks like the 9/11 assault on America but smaller-scale attacks relying on a “strategy of a thousand cuts.”

The single exception to the rule of no “massive attack” potential is al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which President Barack Obama called al Qaeda’s “most active operational affiliate.”  AQAP has been a major threat having twice tried to attack U.S.-bound flights including a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

AQAP controls much of Yemen’s south and recruits Westerners such as the now dead radicalized American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who inspired the U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan charged with murdering 13 soldiers at Fort Hood.

The Somalia-based al-Shabaad, “Movement of striving youth,” is the latest addition to al Qaeda’s network.  It shares similar ideologies with al Qaeda and was designated a U.S. foreign terrorist organization in 2008.   

It has a transnational record and cadre that could eventually impact the U.S.   Al-Shabaab recruits from Minnesota and elsewhere in the U.S. to man its insurgency in Somalia and since 2010 it has operated outside that country.

It claimed credit for suicide bomb attacks against two targets in Kampala, Uganda, on July 11, 2010 that killed 74 and wounded another 70.  The group’s spokesman said the attacks were in response to Uganda’s participation in peace enforcement operations inside Somalia.

Last October, a Kenyan affiliated with al-Shabaab conducted a grenade attack in Nairobi, Kenya.  Similar attacks this March at a busy bus stop in central Nairobi killed six and wounded 63.  Last week, the U.S. embassy in Nairobi warned of possible attacks due to Kenyan troops pressuring al-Shabaab in southern Somalia.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is primarily focused inside North Africa but allegedly harbors ambitions to strike outside the region, especially against its former colonial master France.  The Algerian-based group played a role in the success of the recent Turareg rebellion in Mali and allegedly has a large arms cache due to smuggling during Libya’s recent revolution.   An estimated 5,000 man-portable air defense weapons are reported missing from Libya.

Boko Haram, “Western education is forbidden,” is a Nigerian-based al Qaeda and al-Shabaab affiliate.  It reportedly killed 550 – most of whom were Christians — last year in over 100 attacks in the oil rich country.  Last week, it exploded two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in the offices of several Nigerian news agencies but the government’s response has been ineffective. 

Al Qaeda has associates in Libya who recently flew the group’s flag, complete with Arabic script reading “There is no God but Allah” and full moon underneath, at the courthouse in Benghazi, the seat of Libya’s revolution.   Al Qaeda will thrive in Libya because the Shar’ia (Islamic law) based transitional government doesn’t control much of the land mass which could become a safe haven for radicals.

Al Qaeda continues to be active inside Iraq.  During the Iraq war al Qaeda worked with Sunni insurgents to attack American and Iraqi security forces.  Recently, as sectarian tensions grew, al Qaeda took credit for spectacular attacks that killed many innocent Iraqis.

Next door Syria, which is racked by an uprising against President Bashir al-Assad, includes an al Qaeda component.  The group works with Sunni rebels to make inroads and recent bombings in Damascus are thought to have an al Qaeda nexus.

Approximately 100 al Qaeda fighters operate inside Afghanistan alongside their Taliban ally.  Other al Qaeda operatives under the leadership of Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri remain in safe havens inside Pakistan where they plot how to attack the U.S. with nuclear dirty bombs and biological weapons.  The U.S. has given Pakistan $25 billion in aid since 2001 to assist with the fight against al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda also influences Pakistan-based franchises like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), “The army of the pure,” which focuses its operations against India with the alleged help of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.  LET’s biggest attack was the November 2008 assault on India’s commercial capital Mumbai, which killed 164 people and the U.S. State Department contends LET has a global agenda that advocates terrorism and propagates virulent rhetoric against the U.S.

Bin Laden may be dead but al Qaeda’s core and its many franchises are very much alive, spreading their hatred through violence, and now enjoy more welcoming environments thanks to the “Arab Spring.” 

Al Qaeda is joined on the terror front by other groups like Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah which also has American blood on its hands.  Hezbollah has a global network of supporters including some in North and South America who are assisted by Iran’s clandestine service, the Quds (Jerusalem) Force.

The war on terror is young — not over — and from all indications is likely to get much worse as the Muslim world embraces sympathetic Islamist governments vis-à-vis the “Arab Spring.”  Those governments will undoubtedly embrace Shari’a law and then radical Islamic groups like al Qaeda and Hezbollah will use those countries as platforms from which to continue their war of terror.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is fit to be tied by President Barack Obama’s lack of leadership when it comes to the looming budget train wreck that threatens to disarm our military in time of war.   The chairman outlined his concerns regarding the national security train wreck in a conference call on May 1.

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), the HASC chairman, is beside himself with worry about the “mindless way” the Obama administration is doing absolutely “nothing” to stop and/or prepare for sequestration, the mandated year-after-year automatic defense cuts that begin in seven months — January 2013.

The sequestration crisis is the product of two efforts.  The 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) created an automatic sequester process to force $1.2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years.  Even though national defense is the first job of government the BCA specifies that half of those reductions, $492 billion, will come from defense.  But defense spending constituted 20 percent of federal spending in fiscal year 2011, yet it will bear 50 percent of spending reductions. 

McKeon points out the proposed sequestration cuts would come atop $487 billion in already agreed to reductions which together will “essentially freeze the Pentagon.”  It could cost at least 1.5 million jobs pushing unemployment back over 9 percent, McKeon said, and nullify all Pentagon contracts which will force the government into massive litigation. 

The second effort was the failure by last fall’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to find a fix to avert the budget train wreck.  That means sequester takes effect in January unless something dramatic happens, which in this political year is doubtful.

Unfortunately, President Obama said “I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts” and “the only way to get rid of those cuts is to get Congress to come together and work on a deal.”   The veto threat prompted House Republicans like McKeon to push for a $333 billion reconciliation bill to protect our defense from sequestration.  

Six House committees are now scrubbing legislation to find the $333 billion in savings needed to protect defense but this effort won’t happen unless the American people pressure their members of Congress, said Mr. McKeon.  Besides, the chairman said House Democrats “are not paying attention to sequestration.  They think this will get fixed in the lame duck session.”  And President Obama is on the campaign trail having already proposed a distasteful bait and switch budget deal.

The president’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal includes $400 billion of deficit reduction over 10 years that protects defense but it requires an unacceptable $1.5 trillion in new borrowing and a tax increase of $1.9 trillion.  Further, the president’s new budget increases other government agency budgets while only defense — the government’s highest priority — is forced to make do with less.

The HASC chairman said that if the House’s reconciliation bill fails and sequestration goes forward, the Obama administration has no plan to mitigate the draconian consequences.  In fact, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified “We have made no plans for a sequestration because it’s a nutty formula.”

Worse, Mr. McKeon said, Ash Carter, Obama’s deputy secretary of defense, also emphasized the administration is doing nothing to plan for sequestration.  Therefore, if sequestration happens, Carter said, the administration will chop big chunks out of every Pentagon program and suffer the consequences.

Mr. McKeon was especially galled when he heard from Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, that he was ordered not to plan for sequestration.  That is suicide and “mindless” McKeon said especially given the dangers America faces.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs, testified “In my personal military judgment, formed over 38 years, we are living in the most dangerous time in my lifetime … I think sequestration would be completely oblivious to that, and counterproductive.”   Dempsey further warned it will create a “hollow force” and “pose unacceptable risk.”

Former vice chief of staff of the army, General Jack Keane testified sequestration “would absolutely break the bank at the Defense Department.  We would be a mere shadow of our former selves and be unable to face our global responsibilities.”

The Pentagon brass understand the consequences of a $1 trillion cut over 10 years, but are politically helpless given Obama’s veto threat and radical agenda. 

If the cuts happen our military will loose another 100,000 troops, making ours the smallest ground force since 1940 even though we are at war in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  Our navy will have fewer than 230 ships, the smallest level since 1915 even though the threatening Chinese fleet outnumbers our blue water navy.  We will end up with the smallest tactical fighter force in history even though air power is already critically short.  And our all-volunteer military could become unsustainable due to cuts in benefits which could force America to return to the draft.

Our technology edge will be tossed out the window by cuts to the Joint Strike Fighter, termination of the new strategic bomber, delaying new submarines, shrinking America’s aircraft carrier fleet and terminating the littoral combat ship.

Even before sequestration kicks in, defense companies are making deep cuts to our industrial base.  But sequestration risks severe and permanent damage to our industrial base through massive layoffs, slashing research and development spending, and reducing the number of reliable providers of wartime goods.

The consequence of $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years is “We would no longer be a global power,” General Dempsey testified.  But that is the game of chicken President Obama is playing with our defense. 

Mr. McKeon calls for Americans concerned about our national security to contact their members of Congress to insist they support pending reconciliation legislation.  Mr. Obama must not be allowed to irresponsibly sacrifice our security to protect out of control entitlement spending and continue to drive-up our national debt.