Spy Agencies' Optimism On Al Qaeda Is Growing--Lack of Attacks Thought to Show Group Is Nearly Crippled
By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 6, 2003; Page A16
The failure of al Qaeda to launch terrorist attacks against the United States or its allies during the war in Iraq has bolstered a growing belief among U.S. intelligence agencies that 19 months of worldwide counterterrorism operations and arrests have nearly crippled the organization.
While warning that al Qaeda still appears capable of mounting substantial terrorist operations, senior intelligence officials and members of Congress who review classified material on the matter speak optimistically about the progress made since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by the CIA and FBI working with their foreign counterparts.
The starkest reflection of al Qaeda's status, according to terrorism experts, has been the lack of reprisals for the U.S.-led war against Iraq, especially after leader Osama bin Laden, in an audiotape released April 7, urged followers to mount suicide attacks against the United States and Britain to "avenge the innocent children . . . assassinated in Iraq." By contrast, in 2002, bin Laden messages preceded or followed attacks by al Qaeda and its associates in Pakistan, Tunisia, Kuwait, Yemen and Bali.
Intelligence officials said the killings or capture of senior al Qaeda members, the interrogation of imprisoned figures, the elimination of Afghanistan as a base of operations, and the ongoing hunt for other al Qaeda adherents has disrupted the network's ability to communicate and made it much more difficult for it to plan large-scale attacks.
In addition, officials said, increased vigilance by U.S. and allied intelligence services has increased their ability to deter or disrupt terrorist operations. Some pointed to the success by U.S. and Pakistani authorities last week in foiling an apparent al Qaeda plan to fly an explosives-laden aircraft into the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, as an example.
The al Qaeda leadership was significantly dismantled during the first year following the Sept. 11 strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But terrorist experts still expected bin Laden's followers -- many of them not formally connected to the terrorist organization -- to have carried out attacks during the Iraq war. They said it was noteworthy that this did not occur.
"It's no coincidence" that no operations were mounted, said Cofer Black, a long-time CIA terrorism official who now heads the State Department's counterterrorism office. "This was the big game for them -- you put up or shut up and they have failed. It proves that the global war on terrorism has been effective, focused and has got these guys on the run."
In an interview, Black, who was in charge of the CIA's counterterrorism center before and in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, described the al Qaeda leadership's losses as "catastrophic" and said the broader network "has been unable to withstand the global onslaught" of counterterrorism operations.
Black also said the color-coded U.S. domestic alert system put in place by the Bush administration has helped to "complicate and defeat whatever planning has been in train and has put in serious question any plan in development."
Other intelligence officials tend to agree, although most, including Black, temper their sense of confidence by noting that further attacks, including those hatched some time ago, are still possible. They worry about hidden al Qaeda cells in the United States that might be waiting for the right moment to launch an attack, and about the FBI's ability to find and stop them.
"One is tempted to say [al Qaeda] is crippled," one senior intelligence analyst said. "But they are still capable of more major operations," including those "they have had in the works for years."
Although bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second in command, remain at large, the network's original core group of about 20 senior leaders has been sharply reduced. As President Bush noted in his speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on Thursday, "nearly one-half of al Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed."
Senior intelligence officials point out that the remnants of the network "have difficulty communicating with each other and with operatives in the field, have difficulty moving funds and materiel around" and have not managed to establish any new training camps. What's more, one official said, "every time they seem to be reconstituting themselves, they suffer another misfortune."
The greatest setback to al Qaeda has been the killing or capture of a string of its planners and field operators after the group's original military director, Muhammad Atef, was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001.
Since that time, CIA case officers and FBI agents, working in coordination with Pakistan and other countries, have captured Atef's replacement, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who U.S. officials charge was an organizer of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, as well as three of Mohammed's lieutenants, Abu Zubaida, Ramzi Binalshibh and, last week, Tawfiq bin Attash, who was picked up in Pakistan along with a nephew of Muhammad's who had taken up some of Muhammad's operational duties.
All are cooperating to some degree with their CIA interrogators, according to intelligence sources.
"The nucleus [of al Qaeda leaders] was relatively small, and Atef and Muhammad were significant losses," one senior intelligence analyst said. "There are not many with senior operational capabilities left." In addition, bin Laden and Zawahiri and the remaining leadership have to operate differently with the loss of their haven in Afghanistan. "They must move around and keep their heads down, mainly concentrating during their waking hours every day on just surviving," the analyst said.
Those al Qaeda leaders still at large are believed to be hiding along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in Iran, according to intelligence officials. The senior intelligence analyst said it remains unclear to what extent those who have taken refuge in Iran are being protected by the Iranian government. Bin Laden and Zawahiri are suspected to be hiding separately along the Afghan-Pakistani border with a number of remaining operational chiefs, the analyst said. Those in Iran are largely ideological adherents to al Qaeda not directly involved with mounting terrorist attacks.
The denial of Afghanistan as a secure base of operations and training for al Qaeda severely affected the organization's global reach, officials said, though they point out that members of al Qaeda and their supporters in the ousted Taliban government are reappearing in the country.
"We always thought if we could cut the head off the rest would shrivel up but not vanish," one senior official said. That has largely happened, said intelligence officials and others. Terrorists still operate in South Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the Middle East and Chechnya, but, as one official put it, "they have lost some guidance on the international scale."
Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), a former CIA case officer and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the progress in dismantling al Qaeda has been significant. "I think the intelligence community really has driven a lot of the terrorists back into their holes and broken down the command and control," he said. "I wouldn't deny that the success of the community has probably been underreported -- and for good reason."
Some key bin Laden associates, leaders with their own organizations that were inspired or supported by al Qaeda, are still at large and may be operating.
In Afghanistan, Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban, has not been found. The U.S. military is still carrying out missions against pockets of his supporters. "Afghanistan is no longer a den of terrorists, and we have 6,000 U.S. troops there to keep overt terrorist camps from ever operating there again," a senior intelligence analyst said.
Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian whose organization maintained connections with al Qaeda and was said by U.S. officials to be a link between bin Laden and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, "is still at large and still a threat," a senior administration official said. The official said U.S. military units in Baghdad last week picked up one Zarqawi aide, Abu Muaz, who was part of the cell that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told the United Nations in February was operating in Iraq with Hussein's permission.
The training camp in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq that Zarqawi was said to have run was hit by U.S. bombs and cruise missiles and later overrun by U.S. Special Forces and Kurdish militia. The attacks scattered the occupants, with some fleeing to Afghanistan and others to Turkey or Iran, intelligence officials said.
Initial reports said U.S. searchers found traces of cyanide and ricin along with laptop computers at the training camp. Subsequent reports, however, said only traces of cyanide were found and that the laptops were either destroyed or rendered useless in the airstrikes.
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