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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Al-Qaeda core degraded but still a threat |
| 2005-05-15 |
| Being big in al Qaeda is clearly not what it used to be, but the fear factor is. While Al Qaeda's ability to inspire like-minded Islamist groups has grown, its own core members haven't succeeded in carrying off a major overseas attack since Sept. 11, 2001. So, when Pakistani intelligence caught Abu Farj Faraj al Liby two weeks ago, many people responded: "Who?" There wasn't even a reward advertised for Liby, yet U.S. counter-terrorist agents say he was successor to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the brains behind al Qaeda's stunning strikes on U.S. cities more than 3œ years ago. Al Qaeda is still the biggest brand name among Islamist groups. Videotapes regularly released by leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri see to that. "The inner core of al Qaeda is intact, but as a group it's been degraded. Its survival depends on associated groups," said Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore based security analyst and author of "Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror". "Linked to al Qaeda" has become a catch-all phrase to describe any group that carries out an attack, and either declares admiration for bin Laden, announces a hitherto unheard of or distant affiliation to al Qaeda, or has bona fide ties. Last year's Egyptian Red Sea resort bombings and Madrid train bombings, the Casablanca suicide bombings and Istanbul synagogue bombings in 2003, a Kenyan hotel blast and the attack on nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002 were all executed by local groups who identified with al Qaeda's cause. "What we are seeing is a lot more locally organised attacks," Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism expert at the Congressional Reseach Service in Washington, told Reuters. "Al Qaeda has become more of an ideological organisation than an operational one," said Gunaratna. "Its long range, deep penetration abilities have been lost in the last 3œ years." Most of al Qaeda's energy is spent fighting on virtual home territory, with the insurgents in Iraq, through loyalists in Saudi Arabia and hard core remnants still hiding in Pakistan's tribal badlands after fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001. On Saturday, ABC News reported intelligence sources saying a missile fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft had killed another senior al Qaeda operative, Haithan al-Yemeni, on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border. Pakistan says nothing happened on its territory, while the United States has maintained official silence. Liby, as military commander and Number Three in command, was doing his best to make attacks happen in the West's backyard. Plans for attacks on London's Heathrow airport and U.S. financial targets fell apart last July when Pakistani police nabbed a computer expert who was relaying e-mails from Liby to al Qaeda sleepers in Britain. And Liby's main claim to fame was being named as the al Qaeda mastermind behind two assassination attempts by Pakistani militants on President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. Counter-terrorist officials stress against underestimating al Qaeda's threat, or its potential to draw a new generation of militants, battle-hardened by the Iraq insurgency, to its ranks. But ousted from its base in Afghanistan, with hundreds of members killed or imprisoned and its bank accounts frozen, al Qaeda is not the force it was -- but it's still punching. Cornered in the rugged tribal region of Waziristan after Musharraf ordered his army in a year ago, al Qaeda's diehards in Pakistan must spend more time running than planning. "Under these circumstances even KSM would have difficulties organising something very ambitious," said Katzman, referring to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Now in U.S. custody after being arrested in Pakistan in 2003, Mohammed was described in "The 9/11 Commission Report" as "the model of the terrorist entrepreneur". While Liby's last known job before U.S. backed forces drove al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors out of Afghanistan in 2001, was running al Qaeda's "passport and travel" office. He was, in short, a logistics man, but he doesn't seem to have been to the West enough to know his enemy. "He's unfamiliar with Western ways and society. He's no KSM," said Magnus Ranstorp, an expert on Middle East militant groups at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. More than two dozen people have been arrested in the days before and after Liby was run to ground on May 2, most of them appear from Pakistani groups such as Lashkhar-e-Jhangvi, which al Qaeda uses to draw foot soldiers for attacks in Pakistan. Some analysts say an Egyptian, Hamza Rabia, had more control over al Qaeda's operations outside Pakistan, though U.S. intelligence sources insist Liby's capture is the real deal. |
| Posted by:Ebbiper Speresing3684 |
| #1 Those clowns were degraded from the get-go. Oh, wait.... Sorry, that should be depraved. My bad. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-05-15 15:08 |