[Drugmachine]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2097370

Jihad Without End
The Madrid bombings weren't about Iraq.

By Lee Smith


Last week was a mixed one for the international jihadist movement. Some sources are now reporting that the March 11 Madrid bombings were the work of a Moroccan group known as Salafia Jihadia, also responsible for the bombings that killed 33 in Casablanca last May. However, the day the jihadists enjoyed one of their greatest successes, they also suffered a major loss, when the Chad military, aided by U.S. armed forces, killed 43 members of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. (Apparently, the battle began in Niger, which borders Algeria, and eventually spilled over into Chad.)

Salaf means "predecessor," and it's used to refer to Muslim fundamentalists who disdain any innovation after the prophet Mohammed, his companions, and a few generations immediately following them. Salafism is the polite word for Wahabbism. So, besides the fact that both groups seem to have pledged some sort of allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, there's probably no connection between them.

Indeed, Algeria and Morocco, while neighbors, seem to be worlds apart. Algeria still hasn't quite emerged from the civil war that cost more than 100,000 lives throughout the 1990s. Morocco's romantic allure still draws tourists hoping to capture some of the vestigial panache of Bogart and Bergman's complicated love affair, or at least some of the fumes from Paul Bowles' hash pipe.

One difference between the two countries is that while Algeria's military-backed regime is still in a pitched battle with its Islamist groups, Morocco's 40-year-old King Muhammad VI has allowed Islamists a certain amount of participation in the political process. Still, many believe the biggest difference is their recent pasts: Morocco was a French* and Spanish protectorate until 1956, a relatively mild form of European colonialism compared with France's brutal 130-year occupation of Algeria, which didn't end until 1962. True enough, but it's useful to recall that the Arabs were also colonialists. The Arabic name for Morocco is al-Maghreb, the place where the sun set on the westernmost limit of the 8th-century Arab empire.

The Arabs conquered the Berbers, a general term encompassing numerous tribes throughout western North Africa, whose warrior ethos they put to good use. It was a largely Berber army, led by a Berber general, that conquered Spain in 711. The Berbers were, by and large, enthusiastic converts to Islam, perhaps a little too fervent for some of the ruling Arab elite. Unlike the Arabs, who fought just for plunder, the Berbers believed that they waged war to glorify Islam.

These kinds of issues about authenticity and identity—who's a real Muslim, who's a real Arab or a real Berber—are often present in colonial and post-colonial societies. And the issues are a problem now in both countries, though they are much more severe in Algeria, where there are serious tensions between Arabs and Berbers. The question is: After 1,200 years, how can you tell exactly who's got what blood? Also: Why is a recent colonial incursion more harmful to a native population than an older one that has had that much more time to play havoc on a people's psyche?

That's not to say that the Moroccans don't have live issues with the Spanish. For instance, in July 2002 the two countries tussled over a small rocky island—Perejil in Spanish, Leila in Arabic—of no apparent strategic value. (See this "International Papers" for more on the dispute.) Now one source reports that because of the dispute, for 18 months the two countries suspended counterterrorism cooperation that might have prevented last week's attacks. In the future, further trouble might come from Ceuta and Melilla, two fishing towns on Morocco's Mediterranean coast, which Spain refuses to abandon.

If the Spanish electorate believed that committing 1,300 troops to Iraq had needlessly exposed it to the jihadists' ire, it ought to reconsider the 6,000 Spanish forces stationed in Ceuta and Melilla. The Spanish, whose new prime minister is fond of the word "occupation," say there's nothing unusual about having so many troops in Spanish cities. But these cities are not in Spain. Already some Islamist ideologues are beginning to group Ceuta and Melilla together with Palestine and Kashmir as Muslim lands to be liberated. Even if that seems far-fetched, both towns are notorious for narcotics smuggling, and where there are drugs in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Middle East, an Islamist group is usually not far behind to partake of the profits. Hezbollah, for instance, is a significant player in the drug trade, an enterprise Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat also has a hand in. May my Spanish grandmother forgive me for saying so, but her countrymen appear to be flourishing a big red cape at the Islamists, who will gladly remind them that "Olé" is a corruption of "Allah."

After all, when al-Qaida lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri referred to "the tragedy of al-Andalus," he wasn't pining for what the Spanish call the "convivencia," when Muslims, Christians, and Jews all lived together in relative harmony. That picture of Muslim Spain is undoubtedly a little over-gilded, but it's good that the myth of al-Andalus continues to fund the world's imagination. Without the legend of peaceful co-existence, a city like New York—where Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others get along handsomely—would've been much more difficult to conceive.

At any rate, there was trouble in al-Andalus long before Ferdinand and Isabella banished the Muslims and the Jews in 1492. Two of the more serious challenges came from Morocco in the late 11th and then 12th century, first the Almoravids and then the Almohads, both of them Berber dynasties and Muslim fundamentalists.

Almoravid is a Hispanicized version of the Arabic word "al-Murabitun," or "those of the military encampment." As Richard Fletcher writes in Moorish Spain, the Almoravids "saw their role as one of purifying religious observance by the re-imposition where necessary of the strictest canons of Islamic orthodoxy." They came to redeem a weakened Muslim state against the Christians. Once the Almoravids got soft, the Almohads, still more theologically austere, came north to replace them. Almohad is a corruption of "al-Muwahhidun," or "those who profess the oneness of God." It is an Arabic word still in usage; in fact it is the other polite way to say Wahabbi.

After the Madrid attacks, a number of journalists, academics, and other experts picked up on the idea, perhaps most fully expressed in Jason Burke's book Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, that al-Qaida may not be what many people think it is. It's not one vast organization with tentacles everywhere; it's a kind of franchise that helps with cash here, logistics there. Most important, it is the brand name of an umbrella ideology that all the jihadists subscribe to, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and Salafia Jihadia, among others. Bin Laden is just the public face.

Looking at the Almohad and Almoravids, one might make the further point that jihadism is not just international, it's also a deeply ambitious ideological movement that feeds on its own thousand-plus-year history of extreme violence and revulsion for anything that is not itself.

Correction, March 19, 2004: This article originally called Morocco a former "Spanish protectorate." In fact, both France and Spain ruled parts of Morocco until 1956. Return to the corrected sentence.

Lee Smith, who lives in Brooklyn, is writing a book on Arab culture.

[Fegasderty]

Improvements in Western Intelligence

By Fred Burton

Western tensions over the safety of corporate assets in the
Middle East -- particularly in Saudi Arabia -- have ratcheted
higher during the past month amid a stream of government security
warnings and several deadly attacks and militant shootouts.

Though the concerns and the level of violence within Saudi Arabia
are hardly unprecedented, the credibility of alerts issued by the
United States and other Western governments is on the rise.
Consider the following examples:

* April 13: The United States issued a Warden Message cautioning
Westerners about threats against diplomatic and other official
facilities and neighborhoods in Riyadh. Two days later, a U.S.
travel warning "strongly urged" Americans to leave the kingdom.
On April 19 and 20, Saudi officials announced seizures of
vehicles carrying explosives. On April 21, a car bomb was
detonated in front of a Saudi intelligence facility in Riyadh,
killing several people.

* April 27: Jordanian officials claimed to have foiled an al
Qaeda chemical bomb plot targeting the country's intelligence
services. The plot allegedly involved trucks packed with 20 tons
of explosives.

* April 29: The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide
caution, warning of deep concerns over the safety of U.S.
interests abroad -- and noting that government officials have not
ruled out a nonconventional al Qaeda attacks in the United States
or elsewhere. On May 1, gunmen killed five Westerners --
including two Americans -- at the offices of Swiss oil contractor
ABB Lummus in Yanbu. The shooters later were praised in a
statement, purportedly from al Qaeda's top official in Saudi
Arabia, carried on the Islamist Web site Sawt al-Jihad.

* European security services recently have announced several
militant roundups and "foiled plots" against specific targets. On
April 21, British newspapers reported the discovery of a bombing
plot against a football stadium -- possibly the field used by
Manchester United -- and the arrest of 10 suspects. A well-placed
counterterrorism source later told Stratfor that the sweep -- the
second major roundup in Britain in less than a month -- was
conducted less to thwart a specific attack than as a very public
pre-emptive action to reassure citizens of their safety. On May
4, Turkish police said they detained 16 suspected members of the
al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Islam, accused of planning bombing
attacks against the NATO summit that is scheduled to take place
in Istanbul in June.

The contrast with past intelligence warnings is stark: In
December 2003, the State Department authorized the voluntary
departure of diplomats' family members -- but more than a month
after the bombing of a Western housing compound in Riyadh killed
17 people. A similar communique, which ordered the departure of
nonessential U.S. personnel and their dependents, was issued May
13, 2003 -- a day after another housing compound bombing that
claimed 34 lives.

Taken together, the recent incidents indicate the United States
and its allies are armed with increasingly actionable
intelligence from their sources in the Middle East, Pakistan and
elsewhere. Although al Qaeda might remain, in the intelligence
community's words, a "ghost" or an elusive hydra, the community's
failures prior to the Sept. 11 attacks no longer can justify
ongoing complacency toward its warnings about the risks of
attacks. The government alerts also cannot be dismissed merely as
attempts to elicit "chatter" or otherwise improve officials' view
into the threat from radical Islam.

These events indicate that at least some parts of the U.S.
counterterrorism community have reached a crucial milestone in
their operational and analytical capabilities -- which aids their
ability to predict al Qaeda's next moves and other emerging
threats. It is in light of this assessment that threats issued
specifically against the domestic United States, in addition to
Western assets overseas, could be viewed as credible.

Security Cooperation: An Improving View

One of the first questions this assessment raises is whether this
same level of intelligence capability exists globally, or merely
in a few isolated regions?

While it is clear some weaknesses remain -- for example,
Washington had no warning prior to the March 11 train bombings in
Madrid -- it appears that U.S. counterterrorism collection has
improved greatly in the past few months. Sources in Washington
tell Stratfor that both human intelligence and technical
collection capabilities -- such as wiretaps and other methods --
significantly have increased in conjunction with coordinated
intelligence and law enforcement efforts around the world.
Western intelligence services and analytical think tanks -- such
as MI6, the Center for Strategic International Studies and the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation -- along with the
services of "friendly" Middle Eastern nations such as Jordan,
specifically have aided Washington's tactical and strategic
capabilities and helped in interdicting attacks.

[doctorzlo]

WAR OF IDEAS
When I was a prosecutor in the 1980s, it was the "War on Drugs" that was all the rage. We would do mega-cases, make mega-arrests, and seize mega-loads of cocaine and heroin. It made for terrific headlines. It looked great on television. But we weren't winning. Neighborhoods were still rife with narcotics traffickers and all their attendant depravity. And there was the tell-tale sign: The price of drugs kept going down instead of up. We said we were at war, but with all we were doing we were still failing to choke off the supply chain.

Now I see another version of the same syndrome, and if we don't talk about Islam we will remain blind to it — to our great detriment. To understand why, all we need to do is think for a moment about the cradle-to-grave philosophy of Hamas. Yes, what blares on the news are suicide bombings that slaughter scores of innocents. But look underneath them, at what Hamas is doing day-to-day. They don't just run paramilitary training for adult jihadists. They start from the moment of birth. From infancy, hatred is taught to children. They learn to hate before they ever have a clue about what all the hatred is over. At home, in mosques, in madrassas, in summer camps — dressed in battle fatigues and hoods, and armed with mock weapons — it is fed to them.

And Hamas is not nearly alone. A funding spigot has been wide open for years. We are better about trying to shut it down than we used to be, but we're not even close to efficient yet. And even if we were to shut it down tomorrow, there are hundreds of millions — maybe more — already in the pipeline. Dollars that are contributed and controlled by the worst Wahhabist and Salafist elements. Those dollars are funding hatred. Hatred and the demonization of human beings simply because of who they are.

Some suggest that our situation might benefit from making accommodations — policy concessions that might mollify the militants and miraculously change their attitude toward us. But let's think about a five-year-old Muslim boy who has already gotten a sizable dose of the venom that is found in the madrassas and the Arabic media.

I can assure you that that five-year-old kid does not hate American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf. He does not hate the intractable nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. What he hates is Jews. What he hates is Americans. It is in the water he drinks and the air he breathes. Sure, as he grows, he'll eventually be taught to hate American foreign policy and what he'll forever be told is the "Israeli occupation." But those abstractions are not the source of the child's hatred, and changing them won't make the hatred go away — the hatred that fuels the killing.

When I say I worry that we could lose this struggle against militant Islam that we keep calling the "War on Terror," it is that fuel and that hatred I am talking about. We have the world's most powerful, competent military — it can capture and kill large numbers of terrorists. With the help of our law-enforcement and intelligence agencies — especially cutting off funding and cracking down on other kinds of material support — our unified government can make a sizable dent in the problem. It can give us periods like the last two years when there have been no successful attacks on our homeland — although it is hard to take too much comfort in that once you look at Bali, or Casablanca, or Istanbul, or Baghdad, or Madrid.

Yes, we can have temporary, uneasy respites from the struggle. We cannot win, however, until we can honestly say we are turning the tide of the numbers. The madrassas are like conveyor belts. If they are churning out more militants in waiting than we are capturing, killing, prosecuting, or otherwise neutralizing, then we are losing this war.

It's not enough to deplete the militants' assets. We need to defeat their ideas, and that means marginalizing their leaders. That means talking about how Islam assimilates to American ideals and traditions. It means making people take clear positions: making them stand up and be counted — and be accountable — not letting them hide under murky labels like "moderate".

As far as recognizing what we're really up against here, the terrorism prosecutions of the 1990s were a powerful eye-opener. We saw up close who the enemy was and why it was so crucial to be clear about it. Those cases are generally thought to have begun with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — a horror that oddly seems mild compared to the carnage we've witnessed in over a decade since. Yet, while that attack — the militants' declaration of war — began the string of terrorism cases, it was not really the start of the story.

That actually began years earlier. The men who carried out the World Trade Center bombing spent years training for it, mostly in rural outposts remote from Manhattan — like Calverton, Long Island, western Pennsylvania, and northern Connecticut. There, they drilled in shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and improvised explosive devices. From about 1988 on, they were operating here, and saw themselves as a committed jihad army in the making.

They were fully convinced that their religion compelled them to brutality. And unlike us, they had no queasiness: They were absolutely clear about who their enemy was. They did not talk in jingos about the "War on Freedom," or the "War on Liberty." They talked about the War on America, the War on Israel, and the War on West. They were plainspoken about whom they sought to defeat and why.

Their leader was a blind Egyptian cleric named Omar Abdel Rahman, the emir of an international terrorist organization called the "Islamic Group." This was a precursor of al Qaeda, responsible for the infamous 1981murder of Anwar Sadat for the great crime of making peace with Israel. Abdel Rahman continues to this day to have a profound influence on Osama bin Laden; his sons have been linked to al Qaeda, and one of bin Laden's demands continues to be that America free the "Blind Sheikh," who is now serving a life sentence.

Abdel Rahman laid out the principles of his terror group — including its American division — with alarming clarity: Authority to rule did not come from the people who are governed; it came only from Allah — a God who, in Abdel Rahman's depiction, was not a God of mercy and forgiveness, but a God of wrath and vengeance, and a God single-mindedly consumed with the events of this world. For the Blind Sheikh and his cohorts, there would be no toleration for other religions or other views. There was militant Islam, and there was everybody else.

All the world was divided into two spheres — and it is very interesting how those spheres were referred to: the first was Dar al Islam, or the domain of the Muslims; the second was Dar al Harb. You might assume that Dar al Harb would be the domain of the non-Muslims. It is not. It is instead the domain of war. The militants perceive themselves as in a constant state of war with those who do not accept their worldview.

Sometimes that war is hot and active. Sometimes it is in recess while the militants take what they can get in negotiations and catch their breath for the next rounds of violence. But don't be fooled: the war never ends — unless and until all the world accepts their construction of Islam.

As Abdel Rahman taught his adherents — and as the bin Ladens, the Zawahiris, and the Zarqawis echo today — the manner of prosecuting the never-ending war is jihad. This word is often translated as holy war; it more closely means struggle.

We hear a lot today from the mainstream media about jihad. Usually, it's a happy-face jihad, congenially rendered as "the internal struggle to become a better person," or "the struggle of communities to drive out drug peddlers," or "the struggle against disease, poverty and ignorance." In many ways, these reflect admirable efforts to reconstruct a very troubling concept, with an eye toward an Islam that blends into the modern world.

But let's be clear: these are reconstructions. Jihad, in its seventh-century origins, is a forcible, military concept. I realize politesse frowns on saying such things out loud, but one of the main reasons it is so difficult to discredit the militants — to say convincingly that they have hijacked a peaceable religion — is this: when they talk about this central tenet, jihad, as a duty to take up arms, they have history and tradition on their side. As Abdel-Rahman, the influential scholar with a doctorate from the famed al-Azhar University in Egypt, instructed his followers: "There is no such thing as commerce, industry, and science in jihad.... If Allah says: 'Do jihad,' it means jihad with the sword, with the cannon, with the grenades, and with the missile. This is jihad. Jihad against God's enemies for God's cause and his word."
So rich is the military pedigree of this term, jihad, that many of the apologists concede it but try a different tack to explain it away: "Sure, jihad means using force," they say, "but only in defense — only when Muslims are under attack." Of course, who is to say what is defensive? Who is to say when Muslims are under attack? For the militants, Islam is under attack whenever anyone has the temerity to say: "Islam — especially their brand of Islam — is not for me." For the militants who will be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of Israel, Islam is under attack simply because Israelis are living and breathing and going about their lives.

Simply stated, for Abdel Rahman, bin Laden, and those who follow them, jihad means killing the enemies of the militants — which is pretty much anyone who is not a militant. When your forces are outnumbered, and your resources are scarce, it means practicing terrorism.

[LottiFurmann]

The War that Dare Not Speak Its Name
The battle is against militant Islam, not "Terror"
by Andrew C. McCarthy

At any gathering of analysts, academics, and law-enforcement officers who specialize in counter-terrorism, it certainly is appropriate that we should focus on risks, responsibilities, and realities. My question, though, is whether we have the order backwards. Our most urgent imperative today is the need to confront reality. Only by doing that can we get a true understanding of the risks we face and our responsibilities in dealing with them.

What reality am I talking about?

Well, we are now well into the third year of what is called the "War on Terror." That is the language we all use, and it is ubiquitous. The tabloids and the more prestigious journals of news and opinion fill their pages with it. The 24-hour cable television stations are not content merely to repeat "War on Terror" as if it were a mantra; they actually use it as a floating logo in their dizzying set designs.

Most significant of all, the "War on Terror" is our government's top rhetorical catch-phrase. It is the way we define for the American people and the world — especially the Islamic world — what we are doing, and what we are about. It is the way we explain the nature of the menace that we are striving to defeat.

But is it accurate? Does it make sense? More importantly, does it serve our purposes? Does it make victory more identifiable, and hence more attainable? I humbly suggest that it fails on all these scores. This, furthermore, is no mere matter of rhetoric or semantics. It is all about substance, and it goes to the very core of our struggle.

Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method. It is the most sinister, brutal, inhumane method of our age. But it is nonetheless just that: a method. You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified — and identifiable — enemy.

In the here and now, that enemy is militant Islam — a very particular practice and interpretation of a very particular set of religious, political and social principles.

Now that is a very disturbing, very discomfiting thing to say in 21st-century America. It is very judgmental. It sounds very insensitive. It is the very definition of politically incorrect. Saying it aloud will not get you invited to chat with Oprah. But it is a fact. And it is important both to say it and to understand it.

We have a rich and worthy tradition of religious tolerance in America. Indeed, in many ways our reverence for religious practice and tolerance is why there is an America. America was a deeply religious place long before it was ever a constitutional democracy. That tradition of tolerance causes us, admirably, to bend over backwards before we pass judgment on the religious beliefs and religious practices of others. It is an enormous part of what makes America great.

It led our government, within hours of the 9/11 attacks, to announce to the world that Islam was not and is not our enemy. Repeatedly, the president himself has said it: "The 19 suicide terrorists hijacked a great religion." The message from all our top officials has been abundantly clear: "That's that; Islam off the table; no need to go deeper."

But we have the ostrich routine way too far. A commitment in favor of toleration is not the same as a commitment against examination. We have been so paralyzed by the fear of being portrayed as an enemy of Islam — as an enemy of a creed practiced by perhaps a billion people worldwide — that we've lost our voice on a very salient question: What will be the Islam of the 21st century? Will it be the Islam of the militants, or the Islam of the moderates? That's the reality we need to grapple with.

Let's make no mistake about this: We have a crucial national-security interest in the outcome of that struggle. We need the moderates to win. And here, when I speak of moderates, I am not talking about those who merely pay lip service to moderation. I am not talking about those who take advantage of America's benign traditions and our reluctance to examine the religious practices of others. I am not talking about those who use that blind eye we turn as an opportunity to be apologists, enablers, and supporters of terrorists.

I am talking about authentic moderates: millions of Muslims who want an enlightened, tolerant, and engaged Islam for today's world. Those people need our help in the worst way. They are losing the battles for their communities. The militants may not be a majority, but they are a vocal, aggressive minority — and they are not nearly as much of a small fringe as we'd like to believe.

As an assistant U.S. attorney, time and time again I heard it over the last decade, from ordinary Muslims we reached out to for help — people we wanted to hire as Arabic translators, or who were potential witnesses, or who were simply in a position to provide helpful information. People who were as far from being terrorists as you could possibly be. "I'd like to help the government," they would say, "but I can't." And it was not so much about their safety — although there was, no doubt, some of that going on. It was about ostracism.

Repeatedly they'd tell us that the militant factions dominated their communities. These elements were usually not the most numerous, but they were the most vocal, the best networked, the best funded, and the most intimidating. Consequently, people whose patriotic instinct was to be helpful could not overcome the fear that they and their families could be blackballed if it became known that they had helped the United States prosecute Muslim terrorists. The militants had the kind of suasion that could turn whole communities into captive audiences.

This is no small matter. Events of the last decade, throughout the world, are a powerful lesson that the more insular and dominated communities become, the more they are likely to breed the attitudes and pathologies that lead to terrorist plots and suicide bombings. It's true that suicide bombers seem to defy precise psychological profiling; they come from diverse economic and educational backgrounds — the only common thread seems to be devotion to militant Islam. But while we have not had success predicting who is likely to become a suicide bomber, it is far easier to get a read on where suicide bombers and other terrorists will come from. They come from communities where the militants dominate and those who don't accept their beliefs are cowed into submission.

SAVING OURSELVES, SAVING ISLAM
That militant Islam is our enemy is a fact. That it is the object of our war is a fact. That we need to empower real moderates is a fact. And we need to talk about these facts.

We are not helping the authentic moderates if we avoid having the conversation that so needs to be had if the militants hiding in the weeds we've created are going to be exposed and marginalized. If we fail to be critical, if we fail to provoke that discussion, it will continue to be militants who hold positions of influence and who control indoctrination in communities, madrassas, prisons, and other settings where the young, the vulnerable, and the alienated are searching for direction.

For ourselves too, and for the success of our struggle, we need to be clear that the enemy here is militant Islam. If we are to appreciate the risks to our way of life, and our responsibilities in dealing with them, we need to understand that we are fighting a religious, political and social belief system — not a method of attack, but a comprehensive ideology that calls for a comprehensive response.

In the 1990s, our response, far from being comprehensive, was one-dimensional. We used the criminal justice system. As an individual, I am very proud to have been associated with the good work done in that effort. Yet, if we are going to be honest with ourselves — if we are truly going to confront reality — as a nation, we'd have to call it largely a failure.

We have learned over the years that the militant population is large — maybe tens of thousands, maybe more. Certainly enough to staff an extensive international network and field numerous cells and small battalions that, in the aggregate, form a challenging military force. Nevertheless, in about a half dozen major prosecutions between 1993 and 2001, we managed to neutralize less than three-dozen terrorists — the 1993 World Trade Center bombers; those who plotted an even more ghastly "Day of Terror" that would have destroyed several New York City landmarks; the Manila Air conspirators who tried to blow U.S. airliners out of the sky over the Pacific; those who succeeded in obliterating our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and the would-be bombers of Los Angeles International Airport who were thwarted just before the Millennium celebration.

In these cases, we saw the criminal-justice response at its most aggressive, operating at a very high rate of success. Every single defendant who was charged and tried was convicted. As a practical matter, however, even with that rate of efficiency, we were able to neutralize only a tiny portion of the terrorist population.

Now, however, combining law enforcement with the more muscular use of military force — the way we have fought the battle since September 11 — we are far more effective. Terrorists are being rolled up in much greater numbers. They are being captured and killed. Instead of dozens being neutralized, the numbers are now in the hundreds and thousands.

But I respectfully suggest that this is still not enough, because it doesn't necessarily mean we are winning.

[brraverishhh]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/416810.html

Post-modern terrorism: suicide strikes

By Amnon Barzilai

"Fighting against suicide bombers, you have to follow the assumptions that modern society uses when confronting viral epidemics," says Dr. Hanan Shai (Schwartz), an Israel Defense Forces reserve colonel and an expert on political and military strategy.

Dr. Shai expounded this thesis in an address to the first international conference on limited conflict, held in March in Tel Aviv, and sponsored by the IDF. Shai admits that the analogy between human beings and viruses sounds infelicitous, however, he adds, "The confrontation with terror wrought by suicide strikers is like the fight against viruses in terms of the inability to seize the [terror] leaders and the visibility of the suicide assailants. The remedy in the fight against terror can be compared to medicine against viruses."

Alongside his academic work - at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University, Shai serves as a strategic consultant for the defense establishment. Among other subjects, his expertise extends to the topic of asymmetric warfare. Shai contends that military commanders in the Western world, along with academics who deal with military-strategic studies, have failed to draw a genuine distinction between terror caused by suicide strikers and other forms of terror. One conclusion he reaches in his work is that "in wars fought by regular armies against terror organizations or entities which do not have an army, and especially in the fight against suicide strike terrorists, the assassination of leaders is legitimate."

As a strategic consultant, Shai has ready access to offices of top IDF officers. Some of them trained under him. In the early 1980s, after studying the performance of officers during the Yom Kippur and Lebanon Wars, Shai concluded that the IDF's senior officer corps lacked knowledge in the art of warfare. He proposed new courses of study, and the IDF General Staff supported his initiative: Shai headed the founding staff of the IDF Staff and Command College, and then became the institute's first director.

From 1983-1988, after being promoted to full colonel, he headed the Command & Control Systems and Doctrines Branch at the IDF. Shai observes that nomenclature for types of warfare that has been coined in recent decades - terms such as asymmetrical warfare and low intensity conflict - is not new. Great army commanders in the past confronted problems of asymmetrical warfare, terror and guerrilla conflict. But in this historic context, suicide strikers pose an unprecedented and extraordinary challenge.

Suicide terrorists, contends Shai, represent a type of warfare that civilization has never experienced. Such terror strives to return human society to circumstances that held thousands of years ago, to early pagan periods before monotheistic codes were upheld. Faith in one God sanctified the value of human life - this value did not apply in pagan times, Shai believes.

"The battlefield is an arena of uncertainty, but it is not a theater of chaos," claims Shai. "Paradoxically, the human thirst for life enabled human warfare to be waged in a logical fashion, in a manner consistent with principles and moral codes. The value of life created circumstances in which it became possible for the losing side to surrender, either because of the lack of utility to be gained from continued fighting, or because of the heavy price to be paid for refusal to surrender. The effort to force the enemy to surrender, and not to massacre it, runs like a supplementary thread throughout the history of warfare, alongside the death and destruction. Some of the great military commanders became exemplary figures because they forced their enemies to make a choice, to decide between alternatives of continued fighting or surrender; the option of surrender led to a relatively low level of casualties for both sides."

Suicide strikes, Shai argues, represent a post-modern form of terror. They differ from modern warfare in several respects. Perhaps the most conspicuous difference relates to the objective. In modern warfare, antagonists on both sides of the conflict have an identical purpose - to attain prosperity and happiness in this world. In post-modern conflict, the aggressor side lacks an interest in victory. In many cases, the objective is the struggle itself - the goal is to sow destruction, despair and fear, while enduring enormous pain and sacrifice, which guarantee bliss in the next world. Such wars cannot conclude with anything other than the destruction of the enemy, says Shai. The suicide terrorist phenomenon, he adds, leads to the erosion of the values of civil society. It breeds escapism, and the cheapening of human life.

Shai says these conclusions have yet to be learned by Western society.

Shai: "Western society didn't grasp soon enough that it is facing an enemy that goes into battle in the expectation that it will not come out alive. This is a new situation."

Can you discern any logic in suicide strike terror?

Shai: "Those who are behind the suicide strikes have an objective, a strategy and a system. The aim of the terror, as its perpetrators announce, is to destroy open society and the advances of modern life. Their strategy relies on exploiting the advantages of open society in order to reap chaos - in order to protect itself against such terror, modern society will gradually have to become totalitarian. The system is the placement of suicide strikers within open society, and attacking that society from within - bin Laden's idea is one of evil genius. Via a relatively small amount of terror attacks and of the loss of life and property, bin Laden has significantly damaged individual rights, compared to the situation before September 11, 2001.

"Today travelers to New York and Washington are prohibited from standing up on flights, even to go to the bathroom - such a right was not even denied to prisoners in the Soviet gulag."

How can Western society defend itself against suicide terrorists?

"Warfare against suicide bombers, even if it is waged the right way, cannot bring about a strategic victory. Take, for example, the U.S. Army. Fighting the Iraqi army, the American forces had no problem. But in a conflict against the various tribal groups in Iraq, they have a problem. Their army isn't built for this sort of conflict, and it has become ineffective. That's what happened in Vietnam. It's only a matter of time before the Americans do one of two things: they will use a nuclear bomb, or they'll get out of there by the skin of their teeth. It all depends upon the number of casualties that mount there."

Will the next stage involve a mega-terror attack?

"If the enemy is smart, it won't carry out a mega attack. An attack of that scope will give legitimacy to the sort of response that would not be utilized in other circumstances, for moral reasons."

So this means that Western society is helpless in the confrontation with suicide terrorists?

"In the era of suicide strike terror, the army has lost its monopoly on warfare. So warfare must be moved to another level. Terror should be severed from all the sources that allow it to operate. In this connection, I bring up the example of the world's preparation in the fight against the SARS epidemic. You have to fight against terror as you fight against viruses.

"Terror is invisible. Terror cells in the U.S. are amorphous. Still, an extraordinary amount of planning and coordination is needed to carry out a terror attack of the scale of September 11, 2001 in the U.S. It takes a lot of money. Everything runs through a leadership, which is located far away. And this leadership uses systems which modern society has itself developed: computerized banking, cell phones, the Internet. These are achievements of modern society and terror capitalizes on them."

Shai continues: "Modern society has an advantage in that all of the attainments are its own. Societies and countries that provide support to terror can be cut off from the systems of modern society. Intelligence, not force, is needed in the fight against terror. We must move warfare from the military battlefield to the economic-financial-media arena. This will be a global blitzkrieg - countries or societies supporting terror will be isolated in a forthright, complete manner."

The world will agree to this?

"Society must understand that there is a problem threatening it. The enemy creates chaos. Suicide bombings create chaos on the battlefield. An antagonist has arisen that cannot be threatened or deterred. This is what society still fails to understand. And even when it grasps the reality, there remains the problem of forging a consensus due to tensions in society between various values: liberty, truth, nationalism."

"As in the fight against a virus, we must take a small part of the virus itself in order to develop antibodies, and so strengthen our resistance. We will have to adopt a limited amount of totalitarianism as a defense against complete totalitarianism. For instance: the Internet is supposed to be an open, free system. When there is no other alternative, security systems of supervision and monitoring must be utilized, as a counter-weight [to the use of the Net by terrorists]."

[Fegasderty]

Abdel Rahman was brazen about it. As he said many times:

Why do we fear the word terrorist? If the terrorist is the person who defends his right, so we are terrorists. And if the terrorist is the one who struggles for the sake of God, then we are terrorists. We have been ordered to terrorism because we must prepare what power we can to terrorize the enemy of God. The Quran says the word "to strike terror." Therefore, we don't fear to be called terrorists. They may say, "He is a terrorist. He uses violence. He uses force." Let them say that. We are ordered to prepare whatever we can of power to terrorize the enemies of Islam.

It is frightening. But, as this makes clear, it is not simply the militants' method that we are at war with. We are at war with their ideology. Militant Islam has universalist designs. That sounds crazy to us — we're from a diverse, tolerant, live-and-let-live culture. It's hard for us to wrap our brains around a hegemonic worldview in the 21st Century. But if we are going to appreciate the risk — the threat — we face, the reality is: it matters much less what we think about the militants than what they think about themselves.

The militants see terrorism as a perfectly acceptable way to go about achieving their aims. When they succeed in destroying great, towering symbols of economic and military might; when with a few cheap bombs detonated on trains they can change the course of a national election; it reinforces their convictions that their designs are neither grandiose nor unattainable. It tells them that their method of choice works, no matter what we may think of it.

Making our task even more difficult is the structure of Islam. As Bernard Lewis and other notable scholars have observed, there are no synods, and there is no rigorous hierarchy. There is no central power structure to say with authority that this or that practice is heresy. There is no pope available to say, "Sheik Omar, blowing up civilians is out of bounds. It is condemned."

So how does the conduct become condemned? How do we turn the tide? Naturally, only Muslims themselves can cure Islam. Only they can ultimately chart their course; only they can clarify and reform where reform is so badly needed.

There is much, however, that we can do to help. It starts with ending the free ride for the apologists and enablers of terrorists. We need to be more precise in our language. We are not at war with terror. We are at war with militant Islam. Militant Islam is our enemy. It seeks to destroy us; we cannot co-exist with it. We need to defeat it utterly.

We seek to embrace moderate Muslims; to promote them, and to help them win the struggle for what kind of religious, cultural and social force Islam will be in the modern world. "Moderate," however, cannot just be a fudge. It needs to be a real concept with a defined meaning.

What should that meaning be? Who are we trying to weed out? Well, last year, the distinguished Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes proposed a few questions — a litmus test of sorts. Useful questions, he said, might include: Do you condone or condemn those who give up their lives to kill enemy civilians? Will you condemn the likes of al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah by name as terrorist groups? Is jihad, meaning a form of warfare, acceptable in today's world? Do you accept the validity of other religions? Should non-Muslims enjoy completely equal civil rights with Muslims? Do you accept the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry into the origins of Islam? Who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks? Do you accept that institutions that fund terrorism should be shut down?

To be sure, we should have no illusions about all this. We are never going to win every heart and mind. Asking these questions and questions like them, though, would provoke a very necessary conversation. It could begin to reveal who are the real moderates, and who are the pretenders. It could begin to identify who are the friends of enlightenment and tolerance, and who are the allies of brutality and inhumanity. It could begin the long road toward empowering our friends and marginalizing our enemies. Finally, it could make the War on Militant Islam a war we can win — for ourselves and for the millions of Muslims who need our help.

- Andrew C. McCarthy, a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman .

[Lt_Apple]

Do you believe it is legitimate to kill terrorist leaders?

"War is generally conducted between armies; each side tries to convince the other that it is stronger. When the other side does not build an army, and relies instead on something amorphous, you face moral questions. If you have sophisticated technology enabling you to reach the [terror] leaders and convince the other side [of your strength] by making a direct strike, and if you do so without causing collateral damage, such [assassinations] are entirely logical."

Shai lists four reasons explaining why there has not yet been a global effort to defeat suicide terrorists:

"First, there has been a failure to understand that the suicide terrorists have effectively disarmed armies. Second, there is a problem fighting an enemy which believes that any means can be used to attain its goals. Third, there has been financial and moral support for the Palestinians, even though they utilize suicide terror. By giving such support, modern society legitimizes the use of suicide terror against itself, not just by Islam but also by cultures that bear grudges against it owing to past conquests and to the subjugation of Third World states, economies and societies to large Western corporations.

"The fourth reason is European hesitation. Europe created modernity, but it also fostered movements that virtually destroyed modern society and the world at large. History proves that Europe lacks the ability to identify horrible threats posed to it from outside and from within." The U.S., Shai adds, has aroused Europe from a false set of assumptions, and a series of errors. However, he concludes, "there is reason to criticize the U.S. for not being forthright enough in terms of grabbing the reins in the global struggle against terror."

[Peptobismol]

http://www.stratfor.com/corporate/tstory.neo

[9mm_fan]

Summary

A leading militant commander in Saudi Arabia has praised the May
1 attacks in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu. Details about the
attack suggest that jihadism might be becoming a grassroots
phenomenon. If so, the likelihood for and frequency of attacks
against Western and government facilities in the kingdom and
elsewhere will rise exponentially.

Analysis

Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, Saudi Arabia's top jihadist leader, issued
a statement May 6 praising the four Islamists who killed five
Western employees of oil contracting company ABB Lummus in the
Saudi city of Yanbu. Al-Mqurin urged other Saudis to follow their
example and carefully plan, prepare and execute similar attacks.

Stratfor indicated last week that many independent jihadist
groups had surfaced since the Sept. 11 attacks. The attack in
Yanbu indicates that the phenomenon might be entering a new phase
in which individuals acting alone or in small groups carry out
attacks.

If true, the multitude of individuals influenced by al Qaeda and
taking cues from other established groups will multiply, and
Yanbu-style attacks are likely to become much more frequent.

The widespread belief has been that the loss of Afghanistan as a
training ground put a dent into planning, preparation and
execution of operations -- particularly by novices. A successful
operation entails avoiding detection, engaging in surveillance
and training in weapons and explosives.

It appears that those at the helm of the Islamist militant
movement had contingency plans prepared in the event they lost
Afghanistan. Examining the behavior of the non-Afghan fighters
during the U.S. military campaign in fall 2001, there did not
appear to be much of an actual al Qaeda presence. Those who stood
their ground and fought the Americans were either Taliban or non-
Afghans foot soldiers. The veterans of al Qaeda training camps
relocated into other states before and during the war.

There have been reports that hundreds of al Qaeda operatives made
their way to other countries once they reached the Pakistani port
city of Karachi. Those 600 or so in custody at the detention
facility at Guantanamo, Cuba, appear to be mostly Taliban and al
Qaeda rank and file, who are at best foot soldiers and the
occasional seasoned operative. There are a handful of high-
profile al Qaeda members -- such as Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh
Muhammad and Ramzi bin al Shibh -- who have been nabbed and are
in detention at Bagram Air Base, Diego Garcia or other
undisclosed locations.

Jihadist communiques from the Arabian Peninsula and statements
from the Saudi and Yemeni governments show that many on their
wanted lists are veterans of the Afghan camps. These men safely
arrived at their destinations and might have started their own
groups. They also appear to have improvised tactics by avoiding
formal groups and staying away from training in the traditional
manner.

Despite the loss of the operational hub, the phenomenon of
jihadism is flourishing. In the interest of continued
proliferation, highly trained veterans are trying to disseminate
their tactical knowledge and experience through unorthodox means.
The al Bataar newsletter, released weekly from the Arabian
Peninsula, is one such outlet.

The authors of this publication have tried to simplify training
for the uninitiated so that they gradually develop the knowledge,
skills and abilities they would have acquired in Afghanistan. Al
Bataar offers crash courses on the particulars of planning a
successful operation, training and methods of maintaining
secrecy.

Stratfor sources say that some of the attackers had been employed
inside the company for as many as seven years. They say one of
the assailants during the shootout walked by a Philippine
employee and said, "You are not what we are looking for,"
indicating they were targeting Westerners. Another source says
two militants managed to escape from the scene.

Even a cursory examination of the Yanbu attack demonstrates that
it does not take a lot of training, ability or experience to pull
off such an operation. From the language used by al-Muqrin in his
statement praising the attackers, Yanbu was the work of
volunteers unaffiliated with any group. Three of them were
employed at ABB Lummus -- further reinforcing the notion that the
ideology of jihadism is being taken up by average Saudis, not
just social misfits.

The movement away from formal organizations by making training
lessons available in the public domain has allowed the jihadist
movement to sustain itself and tap into the grassroots of
society. This bodes ill for the security of foreign companies in
the kingdom -- and the future of the Saudi monarchy.


(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com

NOTIFICATION OF COPYRIGHT

The free Stratfor Intelligence Brief is published by Strategic
Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), and is protected by the United
States Copyright Act, all applicable state laws, and
international copyright laws. The content in this FIB may be used
as a resource while accessing Stratfor website products or
consulting services, and may be freely redistributed to friends
and associates without prior permission. Individuals,
corporations, organizations or other commercial entities are not
authorized to distribute this FIB en-mass without prior written
permission before publication. Upon receiving written consent
from Stratfor, the reprinted content must be appropriately
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address. Individuals, corporations, organizations or other
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or distribute with the intent to sell, publish, or broadcast for
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other use is prohibited and will constitute an infringement upon
the proprietary rights of Stratfor.

[S.T.D.]

Moreover, foiled attacks and post-op investigations in other
countries, such as Britain and Spain, have yielded a flurry of
data: Pocket litter from detainees, phone numbers, forensic
evidence, fingerprints, travel documents and other items can be
shared with allied intelligence services to generate new leads
for counterterrorism officials to run down.

It is conceivable these achievements prompted the allegedly
planned or actual attacks against the allied intelligence
services in Riyadh and Amman in recent weeks.

The U.S. Risk Environment

For its part, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security also has
grown increasingly proactive in the wake of the March 11 attacks
in Spain, turning its passenger screening efforts to the nation's
rail system -- doubtless armed with intelligence that indicated
rail and bus lines were vulnerable to a Madrid-style strike.
Trusted law enforcement sources tell Stratfor they are watching
for threats to bomb buses during the summer travel season (likely
as the result of human intelligence reports or interrogation of
al Qaeda suspects), though some commercial bus lines still do not
employ luggage-screeners.

Stratfor previously predicted that a terrorist attack is
possible, if not likely, within the United States prior to the
November presidential elections. Logic reinforces this view from
both a geostrategic and tactical standpoint.

Though it has not achieved its goal of ousting any secular
governments within the Muslim world, al Qaeda learned in Spain
that it is possible, with a well-timed attack, to overturn a
sitting government in the Western Hemisphere; in its view, few
prizes could be greater than forcing U.S. President George W.
Bush out of office. U.S. government officials appear to support
this view: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice recently
said the opportunity for terrorists to impact the presidential
election would "be too good to pass up," and the April 29 warning
issued by the State Department also concludes that al Qaeda might
attempt "a catastrophic attack" within the United States.

Where might such an attack occur?

In light of the recent plots targeting the Jordanian and Saudi
intelligence services, it would seem that CIA headquarters in
Langley, Va., or Britain's MI6 headquarters could be targets --
though they would not be easily struck. Langley, for example, has
an excellent standoff perimeter to protect it from Oklahoma City-
style truck bombings. Militants would need some way of getting
past those defenses -- such as a fuel-laden aircraft or a Jordan-
style tactical operation, using a designated team to eliminate
guards and move the truck bomb within striking distance of the
buildings.

Much more vulnerable targets, in our view, are likely to be found
in Washington, D.C. (a symbolic city, where the brain trust of
"Crusader" actions against the Middle East is found); New York
City (the nation's economic hub, and home to a large Jewish
population); and Texas -- Bush's backyard -- though visible
targets are more easily found in major cities such as Houston or
Dallas than in the capital city of Austin.

West Coast cities such as Los Angeles -- where several plots
reportedly have been foiled -- also cannot be discounted as
targets: Al Qaeda has shown a propensity in the past to return
time and again to favored fishing holes. Such cities also are
home to major corporations, which carry political, symbolic and
strategic value: Al Qaeda believes that if the U.S. economy
crashes, the war effort overseas could not continue. In one of
the most recent tape recordings attributed to him, Osama bin
Laden specifically mentioned some American corporations as likely
targets.

Though there is no hard evidence, logic argues that the next
major attack within the United States or allied countries could
just as easily be a "dirty bomb" -- a possibility noted in the
April 29 State Department warning as well as by foreign security
services -- as a Madrid-style transportation bombing. Trusted
U.S. government sources say this is a viable attack scenario; and
it is not inconceivable that some type of chemical agent could be
dispersed through the use of an improvised explosive device. The
Jordanian authorities and the alleged leader of the foiled plot
in Amman claimed that attack was to have a chemical component,
though that claim is questionable. At any rate, chemicals such as
ammonia, chlorine or sodium cyanide are easily obtained when
compared to radioactive material or even anthrax, with its proven
panic potential.

The "shock and awe" psychological effects of such an attack would
ripple throughout the country and resonate as a great success
with Islamist radicals around the world -- a credibility coup for
which al Qaeda has been searching in order to further its own
political goals in the Middle East.

The point is not that al Qaeda could have new means or motives to
launch a dirty bomb attack -- this has been a U.S. fear, and
perceived risk, since Sept. 11. Rather, it is that the U.S.
intelligence community's increasingly proactive track record --
combined with the specificity of targets mentioned in recent
warnings and growing consensus about the window of opportunity
for a fresh attack -- lend a new aura of credibility and urgency
to ongoing warnings.

In the war against militant Islam, it seems the United States no
longer is flying completely blind.

Counterterrorism and security expert Fred Burton recently joined
Stratfor's executive staff. Click here
(http://stratfor.com/corp/Corporate.neo?s=MED) for more details
about his background and new role with Stratfor.

.................................................. ...............

NOTIFICATION OF COPYRIGHT

This intelligence report is published by Strategic
Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), and is protected by the United
States Copyright Act, all applicable state laws, and
international copyright laws. The content of this intelligence
report may be used as a resource while accessing Stratfor website
products or consulting services, and may be freely redistributed to
friends and associates without prior permission. Individuals,
corporations, organizations or other commercial entities are not
authorized to distribute this intelligence report en masse without
prior written permission before publication. Upon receiving written
consent from Stratfor, the reprinted content must be appropriately
credited and sourced with Stratfor's name and website
address. Individuals, corporations, organizations or other
commercial entities are not authorized to reproduce, retransmit,
or distribute with the intent to sell, publish, or broadcast for
purposes of profit without prior written consent of Stratfor. Any
other use is prohibited and will constitute an infringement upon
the proprietary rights of Stratfor.
.................................................. ...............

[Slonopotam845]

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/w...ch2004/851.htm


(Recommended reading on the strategic implications)
POLICYWATCH
Number 851 March 30, 2004

AL-QAEDA: A WHOLE DIFFERENT BALL GAME

By Zohar Palti


Thirty months after the massive World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, al-Qaeda is a significantly different organization, thanks to the successful efforts of the U.S.-led war on terror. It would be wrong, however, to assume that the threat of "global jihad" posed by al-Qaeda has diminished just because the organization itself is weakened. More accurately, al-Qaeda has adjusted to the relentless assault on its leadership structure by devolving into a set of regional networks -- each with its own political agenda and operational schedule, as a whole lacking a distinct command center.

Success in the Hunt

The Afghanistan war effectively removed al-Qaeda's safe haven, forcing it on the run and in search of an alternative operational area. The northern Iraq-Iran border area, where Ansar al-Islam (a local Kurdish fundamentalist group closely affiliated with al-Qaeda) was based, might have provided temporary refuge, but since that area has also been taken over by American troops, the network is now essentially without a solid footing.

The global hunt orchestrated by the United States (and assisted by many countries, including Arab states) for al-Qaeda's operational and logistical leaders has yielded impressive results. Many central members of the organization's pre-September 11 command have been arrested or killed: Mohamed Atef, Osama bin Laden's deputy, killed in November 2001; Khaled Shaykh Mohamed, September 11 mastermind and head of al-Qaeda's operational division, arrested in February 2003; Abu Zubaydah, a senior operative, arrested in March 2002; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a central member of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell, arrested in September 2002; Abu Yasir al-Jazairi, a senior logistics operative, arrested in March 2003; and Tawfiq bin Attash, an operative, arrested in April 2003. Hundreds of additional al-Qaeda activists have also been arrested or killed, among them Ali Qaed Sinan al-Harthi, head of al-Qaeda activities in Yemen; Abed al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an operations commander; Riduan Isamuddin (also known as Hambali), operational head of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya in Southeast Asia, also responsible for the October 2002 Bali attack.

Key al-Qaeda operatives still active include Osama bin Laden himself; his son Saad; Ayman al-Zawahiri, a top al-Qaeda deputy; Fazul Abdullah Mohamed, operational head of al-Qaeda's East African arena; and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior operative responsible for the November 2002 assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman. Zarqawi is a rising star in al-Qaeda, even though he was not among the first-tier leadership at the time of the September 11 attacks. In allowing Zarqawi, once considered a negligible figure, to gain considerable power, al-Qaeda portrays itself as an organization under pressure, adjusting to new circumstances. Indeed, Zarqawi's promotion suggests that anyone capable of carrying out terrorist attacks against U.S. interests is welcome in the organization and will be provided with sufficient funds to carry out those objectives.

Current Trends

Despite convincing war-on-terror dividends, al-Qaeda's overall survivorship poses a real challenge to the United States. The network currently operates in two parallel trajectories, one dedicated to conducting effective terrorist attacks on high-priority American or Western targets, and a second focused on Iraq, an attractive objective because of the strong U.S. presence there. Although al-Qaeda has failed to carry out a significant attack against a target in the United States since the hunt for the group's leaders was set in motion, the network will continue to prepare for major, September 11-style attacks. Al-Qaeda funding is still flowing, and its logistical activity is still functioning effectively. Given that the network has lost most of its strategic assets in Afghanistan and other arenas, and that its operational leadership is now isolated, the group will find it more difficult to carry out mega attacks. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda remains capable of producing scenarios such as exploding commercial Western aircraft or suicide bombing in civilian environments (similar to the recent attack in Madrid). Moreover, the highly fragmented nature of the organization, its decentralized leadership, and the elimination of definable targets will make it nearly impossible for the United States to retaliate militarily.

In the meantime, Iraq is emerging as the main operational arena for international terrorists, as Islamists around the world are called upon by Osama bin Laden to join the jihadist crusade against American troops there. Iraq serves as a relatively convenient arena because of its geography, radicalized culture, lack of a stable regime, and heavy U.S. presence. Indeed, hundreds of activists from mujahedin networks associated with al-Qaeda have entered Iraq to actively participate in terrorist operations alongside the Zarqawi apparatus and Ansar al-Islam. Additional arenas where the al-Qaeda network has the potential to flourish are Southeast Asia, Africa, and Chechnya, mainly because of the preponderance of fragile regimes in those regions; and Western Europe, where terrorist groups can take advantage of the freedoms offered by comparatively open societies.

Prospects

Despite U.S. achievements in weakening the structure of al-Qaeda, the complex realities in Iraq along with other rising threats against the United States could eclipse those gains. In his February testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA director George Tenet emphasized that "the steady growth of Osama bin Laden's anti-U.S sentiment through the wider Sunni extremist movement, and the broad dissemination of al-Qaeda's destructive expertise, ensure that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future -- with or without al-Qaeda in the picture." Indeed, Tenet's testimony suggested that a "growing number of jihadists [are] interested in attacking the United States . . . [in] the homeland." The successful American pursuit of al-Qaeda leaders has effectively eliminated a tier in the organizational chain of command, creating a gap between Osama bin Laden and lower-level activists. But bin Laden's ideology has not been vanquished. It is alive and well, spreading to local groups that seek to carry out the legacy of "global jihad." These groups remain fixated on destroying America and its Western values -- a reality that will perpetuate the war on terror indefinitely.

As al-Qaeda continues to serve as an inspirational model, it will, more than ever, come to depend on local organizations operationally. In addition, state sponsors like Iran will continue to act by proxy and sponsor sleeper-cell networks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other states with American interests. Iran and Syria possess different strategic options than al-Qaeda or the Taliban, a reality that would challenge the United States should it decide to dismantle the weapons-of-mass-destruction or terror infrastructures of these state sponsors by military action.

The effort to preempt Islamist terror will be strengthened by continued close cooperation between the United States and other countries. Without this synergy and dependence on local intelligence and law enforcement capacities, it will be almost impossible to effectively eradicate the local terror networks aspiring to grow beyond their indigenous operating environments.

Col. Zohar Palti (Israel Defense Forces) is a visiting military fellow at The Washington Institute.