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The changing face of
al-Qaeda
By Paul Rogers
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
Sixteen months after the attacks of September
11, what is the status of al-Qaeda and what are its
prospects? Earlier analyses have concluded that the
organization remained active, was retaining a strategic
sense of direction, and, among other things, trying to
draw Israel into a wider conflict. While all of these
points remain pertinent, it also makes sense to attempt
a more general analysis, not least in the light of the
aftermath of the war in Afghanistan.
From the
al-Qaeda perspective, it is still probably correct to
argue that one of the aims of the assaults in New York
and Washington was to draw the US into southwest Asia,
especially Afghanistan. This was in the expectation that
a lengthy guerrilla war would ensue involving US ground
troops. In the event, the rapid aligning of the United
States with the Northern Alliance meant that few US
combat troops even entered the country.
Instead,
a combination of large-scale arms shipments and
wholesale bribery of warlords meant that the US
effectively took sides in the civil war, and thereby
succeeded in terminating the Taliban regime. The
aftermath of this for peace building in Afghanistan is
still being felt, and much of the country remains
unstable and lawless. Even so, most supporters of the
action see the war as a success because it deprived
al-Qaeda of its main base and destroyed numerous camps
used to train recruits.
This is true, but only
up to a point, as it misses a key feature of al-Qaeda
operations in Afghanistan prior to September 11. Most of
the camps and facilities had been concerned primarily
with training recruits to fight alongside the Taliban
against the Northern Alliance, rather than producing
paramilitaries for operations overseas.
Because
of this, the loss of the camps was almost certainly not
the hindrance to al-Qaeda's global activities that many
supposed at the time. There are, in addition, two
further factors: First, most of al-Qaeda's significant
operatives dispersed quickly after September 11, and
many may have left Afghanistan beforehand. Certainly,
few have since been killed or captured.
Secondly, al-Qaeda has always been a highly
dispersed organization, even to the point where some of
its major attacks have been initially planned as
projects independent of the leadership. It looks very
much as if the New York and Washington operations, and
the killing of the German tourists at the Tunisian
synagogue in April 2002, were each planned overseas and
then loosely coordinated by the organization.
In retreat or gathering forces?
As
previous articles have detailed, al-Qaeda and its
associates have been maintaining a level of activity
over the past 16 months that is actually higher than in
the months leading up to the New York and Washington
atrocities. Major incidents include the killing of
French technicians in Karachi and the attempt to bomb
the US consulate in the same city, the attack on the
Limberg oil tanker, the Bali bomb, the Paradise Hotel
bomb at Kikambala and the attempt to shoot down an
Israeli charter airliner taking off from Mombasa
airport.
There have been many lesser incidents
in numerous countries, and a number of major attempted
incidents have been intercepted, including planned
attacks in Paris, Rome and Singapore. Away from al-Qaeda
itself, Chechen rebels laid siege to a Moscow theater
and, more recently, bombed the Russian administrative
building in Grozny that was presumed to provide the
greatest place of safety in the city for Russian
civilians. There have, in addition, been frequent
bombings in the Philippines.
Though some of
these may not be directly connected to al-Qaeda, they
should be analyzed in the context of a number of other
incidents in a range of countries where there are also
no clear links with al-Qaeda as such. The ricin incident
in Britain may be an example of this, and some other
interceptions in Europe seem to show little connection.
In Pakistan, the arrest last month of three
suspects in an attempt to assassinate a US diplomat did
not immediately show any links to al-Qaeda and this
appears also to be the case with the murder of three US
missionaries in Yemen. Local paramilitaries appear in
both cases to have been operating on their own.
More generally, the trend now appears to be for
al-Qaeda and its associates to be proselytizing among
Islamic communities in many parts of the world via
videos, tapes and direct contacts, replacing the single
"safe haven" of Afghanistan with many small safe havens
around the world.
In general, such a dispersal
of a paramilitary organization would be regarded by
Western security authorities as a success. On this
measure, al-Qaeda would be considered to be in retreat.
This is clearly not the case, given the extent of
current activity.
There are two explanations for
this. The first is that al-Qaeda might have appeared to
be thoroughly centered on Afghanistan, but this was
never the whole picture. Long before September 11, it
was an organization with affiliates and supporters
across much of the Middle East and North Africa as well
as in some communities in Asia, Europe and North
America.
The second explanation is that there is
probably more support for al-Qaeda in many countries
than there was two years ago. Although al-Qaeda
previously gave little support to the Palestinians, and
even less to the secular regime of Saddam Hussein in
Iraq, it has embraced both causes and is achieving
considerable success in promoting the view of a deeply
anti-Islamic US/Israeli "axis of evil".
If this
is right, al-Qaeda would welcome any US action against
Iraq with open arms, just as it welcomes the policies of
the Sharon government, even down to the refusal to allow
Palestinian participation in this week's talks in
London.
Local action, international
challenge
Beyond all this, what of the war on
terror? Several hundred detainees are still held by the
United States in Cuba and elsewhere, some of them
exposed to severe interrogation, especially when handed
over to countries that practice torture. The Cuban
detentions appear now to be long-term, with indications
of impending release a few months ago proving to be
inaccurate. Across Europe, some 200 people are in
detention, but very few are being brought to trial.
Among many Islamic communities around the world, this
further feeds a sense of alienation.
In
Afghanistan, thousands of US troops are tied down trying
to kill or capture Taliban and al-Qaeda militias, and
there have been substantial recent tensions with
Pakistan over border crossings. Osama bin Laden, Mullah
Omar, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar all elude capture, and the
CIA is authorized to kill more than 20 al-Qaeda leaders
if it cannot capture them.
This very decision
has its own consequences, as was seen in Yemen with
tragic results. First, a CIA drone was used to destroy a
vehicle in which an al-Qaeda leader was travelling but,
within a few weeks, a secular politician, Jarallah Omar,
was assassinated and two days later three missionaries
from the US were murdered.
Some Western security
analysts argue that these independent attacks are proof
that al-Qaeda is in retreat, and is unable to coordinate
its operations. This may miss the point. al-Qaeda has
always been a partially dispersed network, and what is
now significant is its greater concentration on this
aspect of its organization, a process aided by
increasing support for at least some of its overall
aims.
In particular regions, local paramilitary
groups may concentrate on local issues, but they are
doing so as part of a loose international movement that
may on balance not be losing any of its force. Once
again, we are faced with a situation in which all the
emphasis in the war on terror is focused on preemption
and capture - beating the terrorists into submission.
Meanwhile, there is scarcely any focus on the reasons
for the groundswell of support for al-Qaeda and its
associates in the first place, a support that is likely
to be enhanced still further by a war with Iraq.
Paul Rogers is professor of peace
studies at Bradford University and is Open Democracy's
international security correspondent. He is a consultant
to the Oxford Research Group. The second edition of his
book Losing Control has just been published by
Pluto Press.
This article was first published
in its entirety on the global issues website opendemocracy
as part of an ongoing debate about global security.
Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus
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