Anger on Iraq Seen as New Qaeda Recruiting Tool
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DESMOND BUTLER
New York Times
LONDON, March 15, 2003 — On three continents, Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have intensified their efforts to recruit young Muslim men, tapping into rising anger about the American campaign for war in Iraq, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.
In recent weeks, officials in the United States, Europe and Africa say they had seen evidence that militants within Muslim communities are seeking to identify and groom a new generation of terrorist operatives. An invasion of Iraq, the officials worry, is almost certain to produce a groundswell of recruitment for groups committed to attacks in the United States, Europe and Israel.
"An American invasion of Iraq is already being used as a recruitment tool by Al Qaeda and other groups," a senior American counterintelligence official said. "And it is a very effective tool."
Another American official, based in Europe, said Iraq had become "a battle cry, in a way," for Qaeda recruiters.
Some of the information about Qaeda recruiting comes from interrogations of captured operatives and from materials found at the house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the third-ranking Qaeda leader, was arrested this month, officials say.
The surge in Qaeda recruitment efforts has been most visible in Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, the officials said. Investigators have significantly increased their use of informants and, in some cases, bugging devices, to monitor mosques and other gathering places, where they have observed a sharp spike in anti-American oratory.
For example, German domestic intelligence agents have eavesdropped on increasingly shrill sermons in mosques about the possibility of war with Iraq, a message that officials there say has clearly resonated with young people. The officials expressed deep concern that the angry climate would lead to a torrent of new recruits.
"I can't use numbers, but we know the activity is increasing and the willingness to participate and to listen to radical messages is on the rise," says Carl Heinrich von Bauer, ministerial counsel at the Interior Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia. He is the chief of the German state department that is responsible for monitoring terrorism. "There are more people coming to hear radical talks," he said. "Also we are seeing people go suddenly from jeans to traditional dress and long beards."
That target audience, officials say, is a somewhat changed one — younger people, many of them converts to Islam, easily susceptible to the appeal of violence. In addition, more women are being attracted to Al Qaeda, albeit in secondary roles, officials say.
"We have noticed an increasing number of people who seem to be willing to use violence for Islamic causes since Sept. 11 and especially in recent months because of Iraq and Palestine," said Jean-Louis Bruguière, France's top investigative judge on terrorism cases.
In particular, Mr. Bruguière said he had detected a "much more menacing attitude" that could make it much easier for Al Qaeda to sign up new recruits. "More people seem to be willing to commit violence," he said.
A senior American counterterrorism official said that Mr. Mohammed was deeply involved in recruitment activities for Al Qaeda, and that the authorities had already gleaned a better understanding of that operation from the materials found in the Rawalpindi house. The official confirmed that investigators were convinced that there had been a spike in such activities, but refused to say anything further.
Another official said the searches had produced a trove of information about Qaeda operatives in the United States and in Europe.
The most recent audiotape message that was purported to have been from Osama bin Laden, broadcast by Al Jazeera, the Arab television station, was partly intended to be a call to arms for Al Qaeda, counterterrorism officials said. In the 16-minute message, the speaker, whom the authorities say they now believe was indeed Mr. bin Laden, exhorts Muslims to seize the chance to defend President Saddam Hussein's "godless" government, portraying an invasion as an unwarranted attack against all Muslims by the United States.
"The fighting should be in the name of God only, not in the name of national ideologies, nor to seek victory for the ignorant governments that rule all Arab states, including Iraq," the speaker said. "All Muslims have to begin jihad against this unjust war."
Some officials said they began to detect signs of renewed recruitment efforts last summer, just as Bush administration officials began talking in earnest about plans to invade Iraq. When Ramzi bin al-Shibh was arrested last September in Karachi, Pakistan, the authorities said they discovered equipment for producing CD's, presumably to be used as training and recruitment tools. Recently, the authorities discovered recruitment videos and CD's were being produced in Karachi. The recruitment pitch is simple: American policies are directly responsible for Muslims' misery, all over the world.
Investigators and sociologists in many European countries say conversion to traditional dress is an important sign of conversion to militancy; new recruits are often pressured or persuaded to change their appearance as a symbol of their commitment. Officials said they had seen an increasing trend in traditional dress in Muslim communities.
"There are in effect two phases here," Mr. von Bauer said. "First you are expected to demonstrate your new inner faith outwardly, through traditional dress. Later you might go back to Western dress to make yourself less noticeable, because your faith is no longer a question."
To an extent, recruiters have turned away from the mosques, where so many of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers met and joined Al Qaeda. In Europe, in particular, governments have cracked down on open calls for violence in the mosques. Officials said they believed that militants now operated in tea shops, Islamic bookshops or ancient souks, where people often congregate after prayers. Officials also complained that they had struggled to find useful informants as extremist groups become even more conspiratorial and careful.
Officials have relied on information from the interrogations of hundreds of suspected Islamic terrorists captured in Europe in the last two years. They have provided a more detailed portrait of the people who are most susceptible to these groups' recruitment techniques.
According to some, the profiles have changed somewhat in recent months.
"Many of these people are younger than before — between 20 and 30," Judge Bruguière said. "They are mostly converts. The threat of war in Iraq could have a tangible effect."
Mr. Bruguière also noted that French investigators had seen a puzzling increase in the number of women, often ethnic European converts, who were playing an important role within European networks, as wives of cell members. The women have auxiliary roles, but provide immigrant radicals with cover and ease their naturalization.
Investigators also say Al Qaeda and affiliated groups have successfully sought young educated Muslim men, often within European universities. Three of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots, investigators believe, were members of a larger cell based in Hamburg, Germany, made up of young men attending local technical colleges. Officials say that recruiters continue to operate in universities because they prefer to recruit intelligent, skilled operatives.
According to Mr. von Bauer, the student recruits are more likely to convert to extreme religious views after arriving in a new environment.
He said the recruits were "alienated because they don't speak the language or understand the culture."
"Then they find community in Arab clubs or societies," Mr. von Bauer said. "This often brings them to the Friday Prayers."
Mr. von Bauer said feelings of alienation also contributed to some young Muslims' anger and feelings of disenfranchisement. "Imagine how it must feel for an educated Arab to come here," he said. "They see sex everywhere, on the television, on the newsstands, and it offends them. They immediately see this as the decadence of the Western world. They feel morally superior, and this fuels their outrage."
Despite an apparent increase in potential recruits, many analysts say that the American-led campaign in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 had shut down Al Qaeda's primary training camps and dealt an enormous blow to the network's ability to recruit and train new members. But officials believe that terrorist groups have established new bases of operation, especially in the Caucasus. "I fear that Chechnya could become the new Afghanistan," Judge Bruguière said. "The threat is moving to the Caucasus, because the jihad system needs a battleground."
In response to concerns that European cell members and new recruits are traveling to the Caucasus, France has opened up an inquiry focusing on Chechnya and Pankisi Gorge in Georgia.
Other officials and experts believe that video images of an American-led invasion of Iraq may ultimately hand Mr. bin Laden his most useful recruitment tool.
"Bin Laden's strategy has always been to demonstrate to the Islamic community that the West, and especially the U.S., is starting a global war against Muslims," Judge Bruguière said. "An attack on Iraq might confirm this vision for many Muslims. I am very worried about the next wave of recruits."
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