Panetta: Al-Qaeda Defeat 'Within Reach'

POLITICO reports:

New Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Saturday said the U.S. is within reach of defeating the al-Qaeda terror network, in his first remarks to reporters since taking the helm at the Pentagon and  making his first visit to Afghanistan since replacing Robert Gates.

Panetta offered an upbeat assessment for ending al-Qaeda’s threat, the Associated Press reported. 

In the aftermath of the May 2 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the U.S. has determined that eliminating “somewhere around 10 to 20 key leaders” of al-Qaeda would cripple the network, Panetta said. Those leaders are in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa, he added. 

“We’re within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda. The key is that, having gotten bin Laden, we’ve now identified some of the key leadership within al-Qaeda, both in Pakistan as well as in Yemen and other areas,” he said.