DESPITE CHARACTERIZATIONS of last week's thwarted attempt to blow up ten transatlantic flights as "homegrown," Pakistan, rather than the United Kingdom, has emerged as the epicenter of planning. The incident is part of a wider pattern--the past six weeks alone have revealed that several other aspiring and successful militants had similar connections to Pakistan. This trend suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a physical sanctuary and training ground are essential to a successful terror plot.
On the first anniversary of the July 2005 London attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri released a tape featuring the video wills of bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, suggesting that the two had trained with al Qaeda members in Pakistan before perpetrating the suicide bombings that killed 52 civilians on the London Underground. The video's release preceded the train bombings in Bombay, India, which killed 207 people, by less than a week. Indian authorities suspect the bombers trained in Pakistan before infiltrating Indian territory. Just weeks prior to the India attack, Lebanese police arrested Assem Hammoud on suspicion of planning to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York. Hammoud told police that he had planned to train for the attack in Pakistan and to impart his knowledge to his co-conspirators. Hammoud is just one of dozens of terrorists who have been apprehended since September 11 while seeking training in Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bangladesh, and several key African countries.
All of these plots, successful and otherwise, contradict a prevalent theory in counter-terrorism circles that all the skills necessary to conduct a successful attack can be learned in the comfort of a terrorist's own home. This paradigm is based on the belief that internet technology has removed the need for terrorist training camps by creating a virtual safe haven where youth can self-radicalize and self-train. Bomb making and target selection are 'easy.' An attacker can simply download instructions and maps off the internet, purchase readily available materials to construct the explosive, and voilá, a fully formed terrorist emerges from behind his computer, competent to conceive, fund, plan, and execute a sophisticated terrorist attack. Such streamlined attack planning puts law enforcement at a disadvantage by decreasing the window of opportunity to detect and disrupt a plot. |