Little Hawk you are displaying your characteristic confusion of opinion pieces with reportorial work.

I recall a tape that was turned up in late 2001 where Osama Bin Laden was verified to take full credit for Al Qaeda's brilliant attack on the World Trade Center. He even went into his construction experience to express his satisfaction with actually bringing the towers down.

As an opinion peace, I think your reference is quite genuine.

And of course, OBL is a Saudi.

I personally met a Saudi-American a couple years back who expressed his opinion that the world of Islam was blessed with many new converts since the successful WTC operation.

And yes, he blamed Israel as the motivator.

But Israel was not the motivation for the Mumbai attack of a year ago. The terrorists made a point of attacking a Jewish center there, however.

I think there is some truth in the opinion piece's breakdown of tribal affiliations and motivations. But it is part of an overall picture wherein the Islamic world has to come to terms with modernity, their own version of the Thirty Years' War AND teh coming of the Enlightenment.

I think there have been more Sunnis killing Shiites and reverse than all the terrorist attacks on Europeans and Indians combined.

Israelis have the sad task of maintaining their identity in the midst of this carnage. They lose much less from over-reaction than from under-reaction. They feel with some justification that they are going to get blamed either way.