Al Qaeda's reach grows, with help from Web

Emboldened and perhaps even inspired by the insurgency in Iraq, extremists linked to Al Qaeda are broadening their war against the West and taking an even more ruthless course in doing so.

This past weekend's attacks on Jewish synagogues in Turkey, which government officials now link to Turkish militants trained by Al Qaeda, underscore the point. The secular Muslim country that exists at the crossroads of East and West has had its share of home-grown terror attacks in the past two decades. But it hasn't been hit this hard, with the expertise required to pull off two suicide bombing attacks simultaneously - an Al Qaeda hallmark.

These strikes, along with those earlier this month in Saudi Arabia, point up three dramatic developments, experts and officials say:

• Al Qaeda's reach is wide, in part because of members trained together in terrorist camps.

• Al Qaeda is still relevant, able to pull off attacks either by direct orders or proxy, despite setbacks to its leadership and rank and file.

• The group's trained acolytes - estimated to number about 100,000 - are now willing to kill Muslims, women, children, any part of a population or country they see as either in the way or as subservient to the US.

The attacks "show that Al Qaeda has no compunction about operations that kill Muslims, even women and children and during [the Muslim holy month of] Ramadan," says Bruce Hoffman, an expert on terror at the RAND Corp in Washington. "They see this as a war, and they argue that innocent people tragically die in wars."

But these attacks also provide the West with an opportunity to foster a budding backlash within the Muslim world. If the US and its allies can use a public-information campaign to capitalize on the ruthlessness of Al Qaeda's willingness to kill Muslim brethren - much as Al Qaeda leaders appeal to constituents - a groundswell of ill will toward the group could arise.

"We can't expect it to come up organically, because the terrorists in their propaganda are presenting their side of the story," Mr. Hoffman says. "And with the general enmity felt in many places toward the US, more people may be drawn to Al Qaeda. We have to work actively toward getting them in the fight against terrorism."

Meanwhile, the hunt for those who carried out the recent attacks moved forward Wednesday, as authorities in Istanbul cited DNA evidence implicating two men from southeast Turkey in the bombings that killed 25 people and injured over 300.

Experts on Turkish Islamic movements say that groups affiliated with Al Qaeda have been operating in Turkey for several years. In the mind of Al Qaeda, Turkey is the model of everything a Muslim nation should not be: an officially secular state, and one with ties to the US and Israel.

Initial reports suggest that the two bombers received training in Iran and Pakistan and then fought in Afghanistan - a Pakistani passport was reportedly found at the scene of one of the bombings.

Rusen Cakir, a journalist who covers Muslim fundamentalist groups, says that at least several hundred Turks fought in Afghanistan, possibly far more.

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