Seven years after Islamic terrorists flew planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon, killing thousands of Americans, al-Qaida reportedly is regrouping in the lawless border region of Afghanistan and planning new attacks, and the resurgent Taliban once again controls most of the countryside, our editorial today noted. It’s time to rethink this country’s anti-terror strategy. President Bush announced this week that, because of the success of the military surge and decreasing violence in Iraq, he will bring home about 8,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by February — about 5 percent of U.S. troop strength there — and redeploy about 4,500 combat troops to Afghanistan. If anything, the troop shift is not soon enough or large enough. That’s because the real central front in the war on terror is in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq. For too long, U.S. forces have been bogged down and stretched thin in Iraq, which has proved to be a distraction from the task of hunting down and capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and dismantling the terror network that actually attacked us on Sept. 11.
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