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Quotes About Al-Qaeda

I think isolationism is a mistake, no matter what party you see it in. We have to remember that there are two threats to our freedom: there's a threat that comes from the federal government, from the Obama Administration policies... but there's also a huge and significant threat from al-Qaeda.
~ Liz Cheney
True enough, Osama bin Laden is dead and other al-Qaeda leaders have joined him. But, the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi is a brutal reminder that radical Islamic terror groups have not disappeared and certainly are not dormant.
~ Bob Beauprez
During the surge in Iraq, we were able to roll back the tide of al-Qaeda and associated insurgents because we succeeded in mobilizing Iraqis - especially Sunni Arabs - to join us in fighting against the largely Sunni extremist networks in their midst.
~ David Petraeus
I believe celiac disease is a very serious ailment, and if you're diagnosed with it, I'm pleased that there are now gluten-free options, but these people who are treating gluten as, you know, an equivalent of Al Qaeda are worrying to me.
~ Anthony Bourdain
Dr. Williams posits that al Qaeda will target 7 to 10 large American cities in which to detonate nuclear devices. The New York Daily News reported that security officials were concerned by reports that al Qaeda planned simultaneous nuclear attacks on seven U.S. cities: New York, Boston, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Washington, DC. (March 14, 2003 "Officials Fear Al-Qaeda Nuclear Attack")
~ John Price
fact, Obama's first authorized drone attack in Yemen led to the deaths of fourteen women and twenty-one children, and only one al-Qaeda affiliate.
~ John W. Whitehead
It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.
~ Barack Obama
subsequently stated that al-Qaeda was working through the central Asian black market to acquire a nuclear weapon and/or fissile material.
~ Benjamin Schwartz
Contrary to what the Americans frequently reiterated, al-Qaeda did not have any relationship with Saddam Hussein or his regime.
~ Peter Bergen
When news of the first plane's hitting the World Trade Center reached them, bin Laden's followers exploded with joy. But shrewder members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan realized that the attacks might not be the stunning victory that bin Laden, and many in the West, took them to be.
~ Peter Bergen
As a CIA deputy director in the 1980s, Gates had helped oversee the arming of the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet occupation of their country. The experience of watching that loosely organized insurgency bleed the mighty Red Army into retreat—only to have elements of that same insurgency later evolve into al-Qaeda—had made Gates mindful of the unintended consequences that could result from rash actions.
~ Barack Obama
But as al-Qaeda had scattered and gone underground, metastasizing into a complex web of affiliates, operatives, sleeper cells, and sympathizers connected by the internet and burner phones, our national security agencies had been challenged to construct new forms of more targeted, nontraditional warfare—including operating an arsenal of lethal drones to take out al-Qaeda operatives within the territory of Pakistan.
~ Barack Obama
By losing our focus on the small band of terrorists who had actually planned and carried out 9/11 and instead defining the threat as an open-ended, all-encompassing "War on Terror," we'd fallen into what I believed was a strategic trap—one that had elevated al-Qaeda's prestige, rationalized the Iraq invasion, alienated much of the Muslim world, and warped almost a decade of U.S. foreign policy.
~ Barack Obama
He ticked off the "four factions" he believed were behind the protests: the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Hamas. Neither of these leaders' analyses stood up to scrutiny.
~ Barack Obama
Hate is big business in America these days, and domestic terrorism has become downright chic in some quarters. If al-Qaeda doesn't destroy us, our own fanatics will.
~ Betty Webb
The 9/11 attack itself played out around the world, with planning meetings in Malaysia, operatives taking flight lessons in the United States, coordination by plot leaders based in Hamburg, and money transfers from Dubai - activities overseen by al-Qaeda's senior command from secure bases in Afghanistan.
~ Peter Bergen
We're here so that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for transnational extremists the way it was when al-Qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks in the Kandahar area, conducted the initial training for the attackers in training camps in Afghanistan before they moved on to Germany and then to U.S. flight schools.
~ David Petraeus
Because of his fanatical dedication to the cause and his own insatiable penchant for violence, he had quickly risen through the ranks of Al-Qaeda, eventually surpassing even many native Arabs. This had been unusual, since Muslims from third-world countries, though they comprised the majority of the Moslem population, were considered to be of a lower class than Moslems of Middle-Eastern descent.
~ Skip Coryell
For months in the fall of 2001, our highways looked like a county fair on wheels. Look out, Al-Qaeda---patriot on board! I once saw a guy with five flags tell a guy with four flags to go back to Afghanistan.
~ Bill Maher
When al-Qaeda was on the run from Afghanistan crossing through Iran, some were arrested and they are imprisoned. Some of them are charged with some actions in Iran.
~ Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
It was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
~ Peter DeFazio
A war on Al-Qaeda could have been won with a decisive military strike in Tora Bora during December 2001, but American fighters at Tora Bora were refused requests for more forces when they trapped Al-Qaeda there; the Pentagon was busy husbanding resources for the Iraqi invasion.
~ Kurt Eichenwald
United States willing to confront the royal families of neighboring energy-rich kingdoms such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, even when sections of those governments also appeased and nurtured al Qaeda.
~ Steve Coll
We deny and have always denied having the slightest link with al-Qaeda.
~ Aslan Maskhadov