Author: Daniel Pipes
Publication: The New York Post
Date: May 28, 2003
URL: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/76819.htm
A day after suicide bombers killed
29 people in Morocco in mid-May, that country's interior minister noted
that the five nearly simultaneous attacks "bear the hallmarks of international
terrorism." More strongly, the Moroccan justice minister asserted a "connection
to international terrorism" and the prime minister spoke of a "foreign
hand" behind the violence.
Westerners were more specific about
the source: "Al-Qaeda is back with a vengeance," declared Sen. Robert Byrd
(D-W.Va.), referring to this attack and one a few days earlier in Saudi
Arabia. "Al-Qaeda is back on the rampage" agreed the BBC and many others.
But they were caught out when the
police investigation found every last one of the 14 suicide bombers in
Casablanca, as well as all of their accomplices, to be Moroccan nationals.
Local groups such as Assirat Al-Moustaqim and Salafia Jihadia, apparently
carried out the operation. As Newsweek summarizes the situation, "While
financed by Al-Qaeda, the Moroccan terrorists were an offshoot group."
This incident points to a routine
overemphasis on shadowy international networks, Al-Qaeda in particular,
to the neglect of local groups. Legal documentation, which provides our
main window onto Al-Qaeda, points to its limited role in most instances.
Consider information from two cases:
* East African embassies: In a 2001
New York trial that convicted four Islamists of plotting the 1998 bombing
of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, testimony established that Al-Qaeda
serves as an umbrella organization for such groups as Islamic Jihad, al-Gama'a
al-Islamiya and the Armed Islamic Group, each of which does its own recruitment
and operations. Their leaders met periodically in Afghanistan and coordinated
actions via Al-Qaeda. The trial transcripts showed how this network could
survive the loss of any part of it, even the Afghanistan headquarters.
* Strait of Gibraltar warships:
A 2002 Moroccan indictment of three Saudi Islamists for planning suicide
attacks against U.S. and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar offers
insight into Al-Qaeda's inner workings. Jason Burke of London's Observer
reports how the group's leader, Zuher Hilal Mohamed Al Tbaiti, traveled
in 1999 to Afghanistan to request Al-Qaeda funding for a "martyrdom mission"
but was rebuffed and told he had to develop a detailed plan before receiving
financial support. So Tbaiti went to Morocco, recruited suicide bombers,
and then returned to Afghanistan armed with a specific plan. Satisfied
this time, Al-Qaeda granted him funds for an operation.
When the Taliban regime fell in
December 2001, Al-Qaeda lost most of its training, communications and funding
capabilities. Some Al-Qaeda personnel moved to northern Iraq - until coalition
forces took over there; others remain active in Iran. Elsewhere, the organization
lacks a secure base, leading some informed observers to conclude it no
longer operates effectively; one U.S. intelligence official calls it "a
wounded animal." Burke of the Observer goes further: "Al-Qaeda, conceived
of as a traditional terrorist group with cadres and a capability everywhere,
simply does not exist."
Looking back, Al-Qaeda's role seems
to divide into two: Some attacks (Somalia, East African embassies, the
USS Cole, 9/11, perhaps the recent Riyadh bombings) it ran with its own
staff, while depending on others for the key ingredients - energy, commitment
and self-sacrifice. In most operations (the Millennial plot, Strait of
Gibraltar, London ricin, perhaps the recent Casablanca bombings), Al-Qaeda
provided some direction, funding and training, but left the execution to
others. In Newsweek's colorful formulation, it "has always been more of
a pirate federation than a Stalinist top-down organization."
The ultimate worry is not Al-Qaeda
but a diffuse, global militant Islamic ideology that predates Al-Qaeda's
creation, is locally organized and constantly recruits new volunteers.
Even the usually maladroit Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, understands
this: "We blame everything on Al-Qaeda, but what happened is more dangerous
than bin Laden or Al-Qaeda. . . . The issue is ideology, it's not an issue
of organizations." Bin Laden concurs, noting that his own presence is unnecessary
for mounting new acts of violence. "Regardless if Osama is killed or survives,"
he said of himself, "the awakening has started."
Burke proposes replacing the concept
of a structured, hierarchical Al-Qaeda organization with a more amorphous
"Al-Qaeda movement." When law enforcement and intelligence agencies adopt
this more flexible understanding, they can better do battle against militant
Islamic terrorism.
