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CENTCOM General: War on Terror Not Confined to Al-Qaeda

(U.S. Defense Department) Sara Wood - The enemy in the war on terror is not limited to al-Qaeda and its associated movements in Iraq and Afghanistan, but includes a global network of extremist groups, Brig. Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt, U.S. Central Command's deputy director of plans and policy, said Saturday. "If we declared victory and walked away from Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow, we would be fighting this fight for years and years....We are fighting an insurgency, a terrorist movement, that is represented by al-Qaeda, but it is far more than al-Qaeda." The terrorist network the U.S. is facing is made up of primarily Sunni Muslims whose goal is to reclaim what they see as the holy lands in the Middle East and to remove Western influence, he said. Their ultimate goal is to establish a caliphate in the region, where Sharia, or Islamic law, rules, and the people are oppressed. Important to CENTCOM's strategy is denying safe havens or sanctuaries to terrorists, Kimmitt said. The U.S. has to ensure that as al-Qaeda and its related organizations are pushed out of Iraq and Afghanistan, they don't just resettle somewhere else. The war on terror will be a long fight, perhaps lasting a generation, he said.
2006-03-15 00:00:00
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