Shifting shape of the terror war

Nor has the campaign against international terrorism yet eradicated either of the two key components behind the violence, motivation and operational capability, argues Boaz Ganor, director of the Policy Institute for International Counterterrorism in Herzliya, Israel.

"After the campaign in Afghanistan, the motivation to attack the West is even greater than it was before," he says. On the operational front, "Al Qaeda is still alive and kicking, and nothing has happened yet to all the associated groups" such as Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines or Jameh Islamiya in Indonesia.

"The next atrocity is not a question of if, but of when," Mr. Ganor warns.

Nor is America the only target. "We sent some messages to America's allies to stop their involvement in its crusade," Osama bin Laden's top aide, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, said in a taped statement last month. "The fighting youth sent a message to Germany and one to France. If the doses are not enough, we are ready, with the help of God, to increase them."

He is thought to have been referring to a bomb attack on a Tunisian synagogue last April in which 11 German tourists died and a car bomb in Pakistan in May that killed 11 French engineers. While a dislocated Al Qaeda leadership may not have planned these attacks, the organization "has always operated top-down, with bin Laden as the CEO, and bottom-up as a venture-capitalist-type system that encourages other people," says Mr. Hoffman.

The European police have had some success in stopping such small-scale groups: Italian investigators last month arrested six Tunisians suspected of planning attacks on targets in France; while the French, Spanish and German police have also made dozens of arrests over the past 15 months in alleged terrorist cases.

US agents have also scored some successes, notably the capture of Ramzi Binalshibh, thought to have helped plan 9/11 – and of Al Qaeda's operations chief, Abu Zubaydah, in Pakistan.

But there is little to suggest that financial investigators have managed to shut down international terrorist funding networks, analysts say, and European authorities have complained that their US counterparts are not sharing all their intelligence.

The recent attacks, meanwhile, may offer clues about the direction of any future terrorist operations. Welcoming the bombing of the Limburg tanker, for example, a message signed by Osama bin Laden praised the attackers for striking "at the umbilical cord of the Christians," and Mr. Zawahiri's tape warned of future attacks aimed at destroying the US economy.

When President Bush addressed Congress soon after Sept. 11, he said that "our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been ... defeated." That goal, says Mr. Bass, is realistic. "But we also have to be realistic about the time it will take, and about the punishment that the United States and its allies will have to take along the way."

Page: 1 | 2