Number Three al-Qaeda Leader Killed. Again.

Image by "lapolab" via Flickr

TSB has this news item today. I saw that news and was afraid I've lost my mind and my ability to count. I'm really glad to discover that my brain is not in a real mush as I had feared.  Apparently some of the news media no longer even calls the #3, "Number Three." Just "leader/s." Makes me a tad curious about the organization's leadership succession planning.  Widespread leadership decapitation and the organization still survives?  There's got to be a management book there somewhere. There already is one on starfish and spiders:  The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. Just you wait.  

But here is TSB:
 
"I've lost track of how many times it was announced that we had just killed the Number Three al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, but it sometimes seemed like we were killing the al-Qaeda S3 (see page 36 of this document if that term is unfamiliar) about every month or two. The Number One guy stays well hidden, of course, and I guess the Number Two is too important to expose himself much, so it's the poor Number Three who has to run operations in the field and ends up catching a missile."

Continue reading "Whack-a-Mole is a Game With No End"

And while you're visiting The Skeptical Bureucrat, stop by and read the Jared Parodies. If you have suggestions for corporate sponsors (Lockheed Martin?), please let TSB know.  I think we need that "Imitation Tweet Contest" off the ground. 


 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Third Iraq al-Qaeda leader killed (telegraph.co.uk)
• Iraq's al-Qaeda leader 'killed' (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Al Qaeda Leaders Killed in Iraq (online.wsj.com)