BERLIN, 11 September 2003 — Two years of US-led “war on terror” have damaged Al-Qaeda and forced it to switch tactics, but it is too soon to proclaim that Washington is winning the struggle, security analysts say.
President George W. Bush told Americans this week that nearly two-thirds of Al-Qaeda’s known leaders had been captured or killed, and declared: “We are rolling back the terrorist threat to civilization.”
In the two years since Sept. 11, the group behind the suicide attacks with hijacked planes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has failed to achieve any major new strike in the West.
But it has channeled its resources instead into masterminding a string of deadly, though less spectacular attacks in the developing world, from Casablanca to Karachi.
On the same day that Bush spoke, an audio tape broadcast in Al-Qaeda’s name vowed attacks on Americans “everywhere” and boasted that the organization’s ranks had doubled.
Although no one knows whether and how fast it is growing, some analysts believe that in postwar Iraq, it faces a giant new opportunity.
While possible Al-Qaeda involvement in recent attacks remains unproven, these experts say it is inconceivable that the network will not seek to exploit instability, anti-US anger and the chance to target 130,000 occupying American troops.
“I think the events in Iraq have actually played into its hands...The fact that allegedly some of the arrests of people who’ve executed attacks in Iraq have involved foreign nationals and not Iraqis could be a clue to growing links,” said Sebestyen Gorka, fellow of the Terrorism Research Center in Virginia.
“This is a very ripe recruiting ground and theater of operations for Al-Qaeda, in my opinion.”
Iraq would fit neatly with Al-Qaeda’s new approach of operating via local groups, mainly within Islamic countries, using its signature tactics of multiple simultaneous attacks and suicide bombings.
Since losing accused Sept. 11 masterminds like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, whose captures represent two of the biggest US triumphs to date, the network has opted for smaller local operations which are hard to detect and need less elaborate planning.
This marks a forced step back from spectacular attacks within the United States, even if Washington remains the chief enemy. “It’s smaller guys, carrying out smaller acts...They are constrained. They have to find new ways, and they are very innovative,” said David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management in London.
“The goal now is to demonstrate that the US is not winning the war on terrorism, and that can be done in a number of ways. It doesn’t have to only be done through spectacular terrorist attacks, it can be done through smaller, attrition-type campaigns.”
Targets of such strikes in the past two years have included Tunisia, Bali, Kenya, Pakistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
The deadliest was Bali, where nightclub blasts last October killed 202 people, mostly Western tourists.
