From frontline attack to terror by franchise

From frontline attack to terror by franchise
By Stephen Fidler and Roula Khalaf
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: July 5 2007 03:00 | Last updated: July 5 2007 03:00


In late 2004, a 1,600-page treatise outlining a vision of a new al-Qaeda was posted on jihadi websites. The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance was drafted by Abu Musab al-Suri, a Syrian mechanical engineer who had fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and had long been considered a leading ideologue for al-Qaeda.

Its central theme was that al-Qaeda should be less of an organisation and more of an order, in which a central base would provide primarily ideological guidance to semi-autonomous cells around the world.

Al-Suri, who was captured in Pakistan in 2005, personified the global jihadi, with a career that spanned continents. Experts say his treatise has influenced jihadis through the internet, particularly in Europe. Whether by coincidence or design, his vision of the post-September 11 al-Qaeda has become a reality.

Six years after terrorists struck New York and Washington, al-Qaeda as an organisation has been severely undermined, its haven in Afghanistan destroyed and many of its leaders captured or killed. But the violent fanaticism it promotes has not only survived, it has proliferated - helped, many experts say, by the US-led "war on terror".

The al-Qaeda order indeed appears to be thriving, with new footholds emerging just as old ones are being suppressed. While crackdowns in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, for example, seem to have reduced the jihadi threat for now, frontlines are opening in North Africa and Lebanon.

Attacks by al-Qaeda-inspired militants have not reached the scale of September 11 but they have multiplied in number and diversified in geographic reach. Arab security officials say self-recruitment, largely via the internet, is replacing the radicalisation that once took place in mosques and religious schools.

According to western officials, an al-Qaeda core remains holed up in Waziristan on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, providing logistic support and training to some; and offering nothing more than inspiration to others.

Iraq has established itself as the most important new frontier. It plays the role of Afghanistan in the 1980s, a magnet for militants looking for jihad, or holy war. The US invasion and continued military presence, meanwhile, have provided a powerful narrative for recruiting jihadis in the Middle East and in Europe. Even more alarmingly, according to counter-terrorism officials, al-Qaeda in Iraq is aspiring to act as a regional base, sending militants to wage attacks abroad - including against tourist resorts, for example, in India.

"Strategically Iraq is the new source of manpower, a platform to operate against the west and a source of high-level expertise from former Iraqi army officers," says a western official.

Officials fear that al-Qaeda-inspired militants are looking to set up frontlines in Africa, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territories. Even in Iran, officials have seen indications that "al-Qaeda facilitators" are passing messages and money between the leadership in the Pakistan area and various jihadi groups. If so, it is not clear whether these operatives are there with the complicity of Iranian authorities, which consider the Sunni al-Qaeda a threat to Iran's Shia Islamic republic but also benefit from al-Qaeda's fight against the US in Iraq.

"Al-Qaeda as an operational organisation has become exceptionally weak because of sustained law enforcement and intelligence but al-Qaeda as an ideological organisation has achieved unprecedented and tremendous success," says Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda. "The biggest contribution of al-Qaeda is in shaping the future orientation of these [various] groups."

Some counter-terrorism officials, however, say that al-Qaeda central command is staging its own comeback, from its Waziristan base. Since a deal was reached between the Pakistani authorities and tribal chiefs last year, pressure on al-Qaeda operatives has lessened. The leaders have become better able to organise and communicate and, therefore, more capable of reaching out to jihadi groups elsewhere. Officials are concerned this could shift the focus of their attacks away from domestic acts and on to western targets.

"It's taken al-Qaeda a long time to rebuild external links. Over the past two years it has succeeded," says Gavin Proudley, chief of intelligence at Quest, a London-based consultancy.

Al-Qaeda leaders are encouraging groups to rebrand themselves as franchises, highlighting their links with central command. The first success came in Algeria, where the established Salafist Group for Call and Combat last September became "al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb".

So far, however, the link has been of greater propaganda than operational value, with no sign that attacks are being directed from Pakistan. But the GSPC is said by European and US officials to be running training camps in remote desert regions of the Sahel, bringing together militants from North Africa and beyond. This suggests it could represent a danger beyond its borders, and one that could extend to Europe.

Curiously, it is in the UK that al-Qaeda's Pakistan leadership so far has been able to make more direct inroads. In every plot uncovered, one element - either direction or money or knowhow - came from overseas, often from Pakistan, say UK officials.

There are reports that a closer relationship is emerging between core al-Qaeda and the organisation in Iraq. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, says the June 2006 killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, dealt a serious blow to the group but also removed an independent-minded terrorist who had clashed with the Pakistani-based leaders. Since then, say Mr al-Rubaie and other experts, Zarqawi's replacement, Abu Ayoub al-Masri, an Egyptian, has brought the organisation back into the fold. Moreover, western officials say that Iraq's al-Qaeda has been partly supporting the core financially.

Iraq is not a haven for al-Qaeda sympathisers, as Afghanistan was under the Taliban regime. Al-Qaeda there is under a constant security clampdown and is rejected by the majority Shia, the minority Kurds and many Sunni Arabs. But experts say Iraq has magnified al-Qaeda's destructive reach, raising the prospects of a blowback effect, as better trained militants return to their home countries.

"Algeria is one example that illustrates that there's a correlation between home-grown Islamists and those coming back with skills and techniques learned in Iraq. And how does that apply to Europe? Well it's right on Europe's back door," says a senior US military officer.

In all this, it hardly matters, many experts say, whether Osama bin Laden is dead or alive. Christopher Heffelfinger, a senior analyst at West Point in the US, says: "I actually think he may be dead. But it's irrelevant. His ambition was to set up an Islamic awakening. I think he's done that."