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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (11233)	4/1/2004 10:32:45 PM
From: lorne	Respond to of 81568

Al Qaeda Under 'Catastrophic Stress'-U.S. Official Thu Apr 1, 2004 03:01 PM ET By Vicki Allen reuters.com WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The al Qaeda network is under "catastrophic stress" and linking with smaller organizations to survive, a top Bush administration terrorism official said on Thursday. Al Qaeda remains a "potent force," Cofer Black, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, told a House of Representatives subcommittee, but he depicted a decentralized organization in which most seasoned leaders have been killed or captured. They have been replaced by inexperienced people prone to mistakes, such as a November bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed mostly Muslims, he said. But he also told a House International Relations subcommittee that there was "mounting evidence of al Qaeda's links" to the March 11 bombing in Madrid that killed 191 people, the deadliest attack in Europe since the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. Despite charges that the Bush administration did not take the terrorism threat seriously enough before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and put a higher priority on invading Iraq, Black said the administration has been "very successful to date" in fighting terrorism. "The al Qaeda organization we engaged before 9/11 and at 9/11 has been put under catastrophic stress," he said. EVOLVE TO SURVIVE Osama bin Laden's network "has been gravely wounded and forced to evolve in new ways to survive," Black said, by "trying to co-opt the missions of other terrorist groups" to attack U.S. interests and spread its radical brand of Islam. Black said there are indications that al Qaeda's "ideology is spreading well beyond the Middle East," which "complicates our task in stamping out al Qaeda and poses a threat in its own right for the foreseeable future." Other terrorism experts have said that al Qaeda is turning into a voice of inspiration for Islamic militants. "Al Qaeda has become operationally less effective in the recent past but ideologically it is most influential," Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna told Reuters recently. Black said there is greater cooperation between al Qaeda and smaller Islamic extremist groups, and more localized organizations. But, with al Qaeda's ranks of leaders mostly killed, captured or on the run, he said, "They're left with far fewer people that know how to do these things (major operations) effectively, securely." Al Qaeda appears unable to pull off a major, complex attack on U.S. soil, or a simpler one geared to kill 100 or 200, he said. "The problem they have encountered is lack of capability. They have more than enough will and determination," he said. "If they could do it, they would." Black said the November bombing in Riyadh, which killed 18, mostly Muslims, during the month of Ramadan as a "public relations disaster for al Qaeda" caused by faulty planning or execution.