Retaliation is trickier than Afghan terrain

A thousand years ago, a small Islamic sect called the Assassins used suicide attacks to terrorize Arab leaders and European crusaders for more than two centuries. The Assassins defied their enemies until a massive Mongol army wiped out their castle stronghold in the mountains of northern Persia.

The elusive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, who is in some ways a modern-day Assassin, is being increasingly identified as the architect of Tuesday's attacks on the US. Like the ancient sect, he vows to evict foreigners from the Middle East and favors mountain hideaways. Without specifically referring to Mr. bin Laden, Secretary of State Colin Powell promised Wednesday to launch a "multifaceted attack on many dimensions ... to bring this scourge [of terrorism] under control."

But analysts say that an American duplication of the Mongols' success will not be easy. If bin Laden is, indeed, the source of the attacks, US retribution is likely to be geographically complex and replete with risks that could lead to a wider war.

The main problem is that bin Laden is the head not of a country, or even a fortress, but of a network of hard-to-find militants and cells in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and North America. The only nation that can be convincingly said to support him is Afghanistan, the war-torn, destitute country where he has lived since 1996.

"If [the attacks on the US] are linked directly to Osama bin Laden, the Afghans will be given an ultimatum to deliver him," says Mustafa Hamarneh, director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Jordan. "If they don't, the Americans and their allies will consider military action."

Afghanistan's leadership - the hardline Islamic Taliban militia - has already appealed to the US not "to put Afghanistan into more misery because our people have suffered so much," in the words of one spokesman.

NATO has already invoked a treaty provision that would allow it to assist the US and President Bush, and other officials have indicated they intend to assemble a broad coalition to face America's nearly invisible enemy. "I think it will be a replay of the Gulf war," Mr. Hamarneh adds, "except that it will be easier for the US ... to get Arab and Muslim countries on board against bin Laden and the Taliban" than it was to orchestrate regional support against Iraq.

But if the diplomacy is simpler, the logistics are not. "There's a danger in everything," says John Cooley, a journalist and the author of the book "Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism." "Suppose this is a composite job, with experts recruited from other organizations coming from all different countries. How do you retaliate?"

Arrests and investigations in recent years have demonstrated that bin Laden's organization includes Algerians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, Saudis, and Yemenis. Some of their nations are among the closest friends of the US in the Middle East. One of the suspects identified in Tuesday's attack is a Saudi national who was trained as an airline pilot, and two hijackers were brothers who held passports from the United Arab Emirates. Analysts say there could have been as many as 50 people involved in the planning.

The Afghans, stricken by decades of conflict and impoverished by years of drought, would have little to lose in defying the West. Bin Laden, on the other hand, is said to provide financial and other resources to the Taliban, an ostracized group whose rule is only recognized by three nations.

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