The elusive al-Qaeda
Apr 17th 2002
From The Economist Global Agenda
Around the world, there is evidence that Islamic terrorism is alive and kicking. A trial in Germany seems set to give an insight into how al-Qaeda works. But it is still unclear how many terrorist suspects are directly linked to Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington
IN HIS latest video, Osama bin Laden’s obligatory beard is not speckled with grey, as it had been in other appearances since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington last September 11th. It may be, as America's defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld says, that the video is “rather dated”. Unfortunately, even if it is, and is being used by supporters of the Saudi-born terrorist in a clumsy attempt to persuade the world that he is still alive, Mr bin Laden’s pursuers have no evidence to the contrary. Indeed, according to a report in the Washington Post, Mr bin Laden was in the Tora Bora cave complex when it was bombed by America last autumn, but escaped thanks to the failure to send in American ground troops. Elsewhere around the world there seems to be plenty of evidence of the extent and continuing activity of the al-Qaeda network, whatever Mr bin Laden’s fate. And the threat of further terrorist attacks remains, at least according to President George Bush. In a speech on April 17th, he warned of a “spring thaw” that will bring an increase in terrorist activity, and pledged that America will fight this threat “day by day, terrorist by terrorist”.
Al Hayat, an Arabic-language newspaper, earlier this week published a statement by Mullah Mohammed Omar, who is also wanted by the Americans for the protection his Taliban regime gave to Mr bin Laden and his fellow al-Qaeda terrorists. The statement refers to events in Israel and Afghanistan as “a flagrant crusader war”, adding that “the Jews and the Americans are one army on one mission.” So perhaps Mullah Omar is still alive, and fomenting, as well.
The White House posts information on the hunt for al-Qaeda terrorists, as part of its response to terrorism. The US Defence Department and Central Command provide news on their military activities in Afghanistan. The British Ministry of Defence posts news on British troops' involvement in the country.
In Afghanistan itself, American troops have conceded that senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders remain at large. Speaking earlier this week, Mr Bush said that, despite the welcome capture of Abu Zubaydah, a key al-Qaeda leader, other “terrorists” were on the loose and “still want to hit us”. Indeed, British commandos, trained in the art of mountain warfare, have just begun an operation to destroy some of the cave networks where the fugitives are believed to be hiding. Rocket attacks on American bases, such as at Khost, confirm that the terrorists are still active, and that they maintain enough fire power to trouble, at the very least, the American forces.
In Tunisia, the government has been forced to admit that a blast that went off last week close to North Africa’s oldest synagogue, which killed 16 people, including 10 German tourists, may not have been an accident, as it had been insisting. The German government briefly arrested a man they said had been speaking to the driver of the truck carrying cooking oil that exploded, whom they suspect of being the perpetrator. The unnamed arrested man, a German who has converted to Islam, is suspected to have links to al-Qaeda, according to the German magazine, Stern. One French citizen was killed as well, and the French authorities, like the Germans, wish to take part in the investigation. It is suspected that Tunisia, the second most popular African tourist destination after South Africa, wanted to portray the blast as an accident in order to protect its tourist industry. European investigators have been taken aback that repair work on the synagogue started almost immediately, leaving little time for forensic examination.
The German authorities are particularly aware of the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism after it emerged that three of the suicide hijackers who had piloted the four passenger planes on September 11th had spent many years in Hamburg. Germany, like France and Britain, is said to be home to so-called “sleeper cells”—groups of sympathisers who lead apparently innocuous lives for years, ready to support or to take part in acts of terror when called upon to do so.
In Frankfurt, five Algerian men are on trial, four of them accused of plotting to cause an explosion at the Christmas market in the French border city of Strasbourg in December 2000. All five are also accused of being members of a terrorist organisation. The men are said by prosecutors to be veterans of al-Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan, and all five are said to have spent time there between 1998 and 2000. Prosecutors also claim that they are members of an al-Qaeda-linked group, called the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, although it is not known if they are directly linked to Mr bin Laden. The group is alleged to have worked with Muslim extremists in Britain, Italy, France, Spain and Belgium. Another four men are in French custody, while the alleged mastermind, Abu Doha, an Algerian, is in custody in Britain. The United States is seeking his extradition for his part in a plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium. At the start of the trial, Lamine Maroni, one of the accused, shouted at the court: “You are all Jews. I don’t need you. I don’t need a defence lawyer. God will defend me.”
It is still unclear if these disparate events around the world are linked, whether to each other or to Mr bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. Police everywhere now have a strong incentive not only to look for, but also to claim such links, and they may be exaggerating the extent and nature of al-Qaeda, creating an image of a terrifying, many-headed opponent which is almost impossible to detect or deter. On the other hand, such links, at least in some of these cases, cannot be ruled out either. And yet two things are certain. First, the scale and the geographical extent of the terrorist outrages being planned by Islamic terrorists of one sort or another are much greater than the authorities suspected before September 11th. And second, the terrorists’ inspiration, even if not always their direct commander, has been Osama bin Laden, and he is probably still at large. |
