Where does Al Qaeda stand now?

Experts say the terrorist network has rebuilt in Pakistan with inexperienced leaders and murky goals.

from the March 5, 2007 edition

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Al Qaeda's reach

As to evidence of Al Qaeda regaining its ability to reach out and mount attacks, in a videotape released last year Mr. Zawahiri claimed responsibility for the July 2005 London bombings. Similarly, investigators have long believed that last years' failed plot to blow up airliners from London was Al Qaeda-related, in part because it resembled a mid-1990s plan to explode airliners over the Pacific.

Some critics of the White House are surprised that many of the recent warnings about Al Qaeda come from administration officials. In essence, critics say, the White House confirms something they've long held to be true: the central front in the war on terror is along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, not in Iraq.

"We went to Iraq and left the serious terrorist problem to fester," Ms. Stern says.

On the subject of Iraq and Al Qaeda, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) estimates that less than 10 percent of the Iraqi insurgency consists of foreign fighters. Of those, most are suicide bombers.

Violence perpetrated by terrorists accounts for "only a fraction" of insurgent violence in Iraq, according to a written statement submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee by DIA director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples. The attacks have a disproportionate impact on Iraq's stability because of the high-profile nature of the terrorist operations and tactics, the DIA says.

US remains a potential target

According to General Maples's statement, documents captured in a raid on a safehouse belonging to Al Qaeda in Iraq revealed that the group was planning operations in the US.

"Despite being forced to decentralize its network, Al Qaeda retains the ability to organize complex, mass-casualty attacks and inspire others," Maples wrote.

The DIA and other US intelligence sources maintain that Al Qaeda is still focused on striking the US. But that is not the same as having a specific plan or a discernable strategy for the goals it hopes to achieve by doing so, the RAND study says.

The study examined a number of hypothesis that might explain Al Qaeda's thinking with regard to hitting within the US: that the group's leaders might be interested in rallying supporters around the world or in coercing the US into leaving the Middle East.

The most likely scenario, RAND concluded, was that Al Qaeda would pick targets that would simultaneously create fear and damage the US economy. It might attack US agriculture or food industries, for instance; or employ radiological "dirty" bombs.

But, the study says, the terrorist organization itself has given few real clues about where or when it might strike, or if its leadership is even thinking in such terms, said the RAND study.

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