World Updates
September 20, 2005
Al Qaeda training ground shifts to Iraq - U.N. panel
By Irwin Arieff
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The al Qaeda terror network has capitalized on the insurgency in Iraq by creating a new training ground to replace the bases it lost in Afghanistan in 2001, a U.N. expert panel said on Monday.
The chaos in Iraq will thereby likely increase the danger of future terrorist attacks considerably, the panel said in its latest status report to the U.N. Security Council on al Qaeda and Afghanistan's former Taliban leaders.
"Recruits travel there from many parts of the world and acquire skills in urban warfare, bomb-making, assassination and suicide attacks," the panel said.
"When these fighters return to their countries of origin or residence and join those at home who are well integrated locally, the combination is likely to increase the threat of successful terrorist attacks considerably," the experts said.
U.S. President George W. Bush has repeatedly declared Iraq to be the front line in the U.S. war on terror, using that as a justification for the presence of U.S.-led forces along with the desire to establish a secure democracy there.
But he says the U.S. military is fighting there to prevent the terrorists from reaching U.S. shores.
"I would rather defeat them there than face them in our own country," Bush told ITV British television in June.
The Security Council created the expert panel, led by British counterterrorism specialist Richard Barrett, to advise it on strategy in its anti-terror efforts launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Following those deadly attacks, a U.S.-led force toppled the Taliban and chased al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, which it was using as a base and training ground.
The council also set up at the time a list of businesses, organizations and individuals suspected of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban, to deprive suspected extremists of the money and other resources they need to carry out attacks.
Governments are asked to freeze the assets and travel of any individual or group put on the list, and bar them from obtaining arms or other resources.
ZARQAWI AGREEMENT
The expert panel said al Qaeda's most notable success, next to surviving, has been the agreement it forged with Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, now the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
That alliance has benefited both sides, enabling al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to claim involvement in an issue at the focus of world attention and enabling Zarqawi to attract new recruits, it said.
Bin Laden "knows that he needs this new breed of hardened fighters in order to demonstrate that al Qaeda still has the power to mount major attacks outside areas of conflict," it said.
Zarqawi's insurgency has enabled al Qaeda "to an extent ... to recover from the loss of Afghanistan as a training base for terrorism," the report said.
At the same time, the several thousand fighters believed to have trained in Afghanistan before the Taliban's defeat in late 2001 have by now spread around the world, "actively providing expertise and leadership to local cells," the panel said.
As a result, despite concerted international action including many successes, "the threat from al Qaeda remains as pernicious and widespread as at any time since the attacks of 11 September 2001," it said.
While the old-line al Qaeda organization led by bin Laden has survived, "its ranks are thinning and in time most of its key leaders will be caught or killed," it said.
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