Al-Qaeda turns against Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With the recent release of audio and video tapes of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri - which US intelligence experts say are "most likely authentic" - debate has once again intensified on al-Qaeda, and just how successful the "war on terror" has been in curtailing its activities.
Asia Times Online investigations, based on interviews with intelligence sources of various backgrounds, police experts and decisionmakers, reveal that in the two years since September 11, when the US vowed to eliminate bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terror organization has suffered numerous setbacks, but it has been forced to redefine its operations, tactics and targets.
Bin Laden's International Islamic Front, an umbrella organization for jihadi terrorist organizations of which al-Qaeda is an element, has focused its attention primarily on attacking US and Western interests in a number of countries, and this will continue.
For al-Qaeda in particular, though, it has been badly affected by a change of fortunes in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where it had enjoyed what amounted to a truce, if not active support from some quarters. A number of al-Qaeda suspects are now believed to be in Saudi jails, while in Pakistan, which has come under intense US pressure, the blind eye that once gazed on al-Qaeda is now looking with 20-20 vision.
As a direct result of this, al-Qaeda will open a new front in these two countries. Indeed, the "ceasefire" that it followed in Saudi Arabia - bin Laden's country of birth - has already been broken.
Among the 14,000 male members of the Saudi royal family there is a strong but sidelined lobby of princes who support bin Laden. They do not necessarily agree with his strict Wahhabi agenda, rather, they seek to use him as a means of getting at the ruling elite. In terms of its new mission, al-Qaeda will actively play along with this. After all, if nothing else, it still needs the funds that apparently flow from its supporters in the kingdom.
In Pakistan, too, the knives, literally, are going to be drawn. From the early stages of the "war on terror", al-Qaeda and the Taliban were assured by Pakistan that the country would wear two faces - one acceptable to the US, the other friendly towards al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the latter, especially, having enjoyed long-time support from Pakistan. As a result, President General Pervez Musharraf made much of his alliance with counterpart George W Bush on the international stage, while on the domestic front the crackdown on terror was token, at best.
This changed, though, and in time, whether through US insistence or for another agenda, Musharraf's crackdown has begun to bite. And it hurts.
In the past, Pakistan has figured only as a transitory port for al-Qaeda, and its members have not been involved in any operations in the country - neither the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl nor the Sheraton bomb blast in which a number of French civilian workers were killed. These and other missions were carried out by local groups. Indeed, only one Pakistani is known to have entered into the ranks of al-Qaeda.
Contrary to widespread belief, Shiekh Omar, who was arrested in connection with the Pearl killing, although he had contact with a few al-Qaeda people, was an independent operator. The only Pakistani with a record of closeness to al-Qaeda is Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil, chief of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen, who is now underground on the instructions of Pakistani intelligence organizations.
At present, according to the contacts that Asia Times Online spoke to, there is a realization in al-Qaeda that Musharraf is their only enemy in the country as he is the one now orchestrating the crackdown. Remove him, they argue, and the environment will once again be favorable to them. As a result, according to these same well-placed sources, Musharraf has been pencilled in at the top of al-Qaeda's hit list, and attempts on his life can be expected in the near future.
Pakistani security agencies have made Musharraf fully aware of these developments. President House in the capital Islamabad is now offlimits as it is too difficult to secure. Musharraf spends most of his time in Army House in Rawalpindi, or in general headquarters there, even when performing his day-to-day civilian functions.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, then, remain al-Qaeda's new and immediate targets, even before US-related targets. This includes Iraq, too, where it has only a few operators, mostly from Jordan of Iraqi origin who had contact with Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party before the war. They are now in Iraq, but they are not top line operators and not capable for carrying out high-profile action against the US-led forces.
Al-Qaeda's weapons
There is no proof of al-Qaeda possessing weapons of mass destruction. However, some Western intelligence networks believe that it has now developed a strategy to use small chemical and biological weapons that can be obtained or developed with limited facilities. There are several reasons for this:
Their undetectability by traditional anti-terrorist sensor systems (and hence by conventional countermeasures)
The time-lag (in many cases) between release of an agent and its perceived effects on humans, allowing the perpetrator(s) to escape
In at least some cases, the lack of a "signature", enabling an assassin, for example, to disguise the cause of death
Their adaptability to small demonstration attacks as an indication of resolve and ability to carry out the threat of a much more devastating attack
Their capacity - unobtainable by other means - to inflict heavy casualties on the military forces of a state or to seriously damage its economy
The degree of sheer terror (and hence social disruption) that may be instilled in a target population, due to the particularly insidious nature (microscopic, colorless, and/or odorless) of the agents in question.
In this regard, a key leader who had the opportunity to act at the forefront of the campaign against terror gave his views to Asia Times Online.
Former Pakistan interior minister, retired Lieutenant-General Moinuddin Haider, was one of the most powerful people to occupy the position, during which time he forcibly opened the previously closed tribal areas to the Pakistani armed forces in their efforts to track down terror networks in Pakistan - a mission that led to his elder brother being killed by terrorists.
"All militant groups have traditionally used light weapons against their enemies. Then they started using ordinary explosive material, and now they have started using human bodies [strapped] with explosives for suicide attacks. This is the kind of strategy I am familiar with about al-Qaeda. As far as chemical weapons are concerned, I have never come across any information which confirms this kind of information. Moreover, the US has been in Afghanistan for a long time. I do not know of any labs it has discovered where al-Qaeda developed chemical weapons," Moinuddin Haider said.
During Haider's time more than 400 al-Qaeda suspects were rounded up, but he still believes that the network is intact. "We had a list of those who were high profile figures. I believe that there are a lot of unidentified faces who are roaming freely."
Haider maintains that al-Qaeda and other militant groups tend to react to situations, so as long as there are events for them to react to, they will flourish.
"We conducted a psychoanalysis of all prisoners who were arrested crossing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border after the US invasion [early 2002]. You will be surprised that many of them come from urban and cosmopolitan backgrounds. Their reason for fighting in Afghanistan was a kind of reaction. You know, everybody can view what is happening in Palestine and Chechnya, but nobody speaks against that terrorism. People's houses are demolished and missiles are fired on their populations, so they think that if they are going to die, why not make a suicide attack and kill their aggressors too. This is the thinking that is growing all over the Muslim world, it is a reaction. I think the real and long-term remedy is not suppression, but justice," Haider says.
Al-Qaeda's objectives now, then, are to deal with what it considers "traitors" in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. However, this is not all.
Asia Times Online has learned that new operations are being planned for a new team against US interests in the Central Asian republics, where apparently, there are about 2,000 al-Qaeda operators made up of Uzbeks and Chechans returning from Afghanistan.
atimes.com |
