al-Qaeda Is Broke

.

With&


al Qaeda To Cut Workforce By 25,000

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CAP) (CNN) (P.E.T.E.R.) - Hello this is Anderson Cooper reporting for Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. I bet you had forgotten about this little thorn in our side named al Qaeda. They are not out of the picture yet. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill has diverted our attention from this terrorist group, something the leader of al Qaeda is not very happy about. They have done everything but hang themselves from the highest branch to bring our attention to them and nothing has worked so far. Nothing that is until now.

This morning we got an out of focus, scratchy videotape from Abbas Al Dinar Malinnfort Huttan Sammir Coeur, a French citizen who claims to be the 32nd in line to be the number 1 al Qaeda leader. For what little we could make from his barely audible videotape and his heavy French, Arab accented English we deducted that he is on the verge of going broke. At first we thought it was a lie, that all he was doing was to distract our attention away from the Gulf Coast oil spill to them, but upon analyzing the videotape carefully we concluded that he was telling the true. The bad quality of the tape, his raggedy, dirty outfit, the cave he was in, and the sheep bones laying by the side next to a freshly extinguished fire gave us the information we needed to realize that this fellow was on the verge of desperation.

It is true, lean times and economic hardships have hit the world's largest terrorist organization as al Qaeda's Board of Directors has announced impending layoffs of up to 25,000 members. Terrorism pundits were not surprised.

"We've been teetering on the edge for so long," said independent terrorism consultant Omar Hasmir McNalley, he spoke with me over the phone on a teleconference from a "de luxe" cave, as he called it, in the mountainous region on the North side of Afghanistan. He asked me not to disclose his location but who, do I ask, will find him in that god forsaken part of the country -- I had e-mailed him a copy of the badly recorded videotape at the31st@aol.com. "You can't recruit by the thousands and expect to keep up with the bombs and other hardware necessary to outfit such a large organization. The money just isn't there anymore." I understood that the present international economic recession has hit the terrorist group as well.

al Qaeda announced last week its fiscal fourth-quarter profit declined by 9 percent despite a 28 percent increase in suicide bombings, as year-ago results were boosted by tax breaks for families with more than one terrorist.

The terrorist organization also said it expects lower profits for the first quarter on a sequential basis.

"Those members participating in the reduction in force will not be left out in the cold by their terrorist brothers," said al Qaeda CFO Abil MusDos al-Fraedo as translated by Mr. Hasmir McNalley. "We will provide job training and classes so that RIF'ed members can continue to be productive members of society without the need to become suicide killers on their own... for now."

al-Fraedo stopped short of saying that the cuts alone would put the organization back onto the path to profitability. However, he did indicate that at least a portion of those laid off could be called back after the traditionally slow summer killing months.

"I don't know what I am going to do," told me al Qaeda member Rufus Mohammed al-Akbar after getting word he would be one of the first 10,000 to be let go. "All my life I train to die; I have no other marketable skills. Perhaps I'll look into a job at the post office, I could die just the same if I get bit by a rabid dog, or get hit by a truck while crossing the street, or get confused for an American coming to kick their door down to force his entry unnecessary."

"Bummer" was all I was able to say before our communication was cut off.