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SPEAKING
FREELY
It's all about
Iraq
By Richard M Bennett
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
Ayman al-Zawahri,
one of the most senior figures in al-Qaeda, has
warned Britain and the US to expect more attacks
unless they get their troops out of Iraq and all
other Muslim countries.
He also warned
that London will face new terrorist outrages
because of Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign
policy decisions.
He added, "Blair has
brought you destruction to the heart of London,
and he will bring more destruction, God willing."
These new threats were made in a videotape that
was broadcast on al-Jazeera TV. This alarming
statement also further establishes a link between
the invasion of Iraq and the London bombings and
is one that is becoming ever more obvious to the
great majority of people, but not yet, it would
seem, to the British prime minister.
Another attack within three weeks?
Even more significantly, this most recent
statement must be seen in the context of previous
events as Zawahri's words often appear to be used
to trigger al-Qaeda cells around the world to
stage attacks.
Some of these include:
On August 7, 1998 Islamic suicide bombers blew
up the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam,
killing more than 220 people. This followed a
statement by Zawahri the previous day.
On October 9, 2002 another Zawahri tape
threatened more attacks on the US and its allies.
Three days later, the Bali nightclub bombs killed
more than 200 people, mostly Westerners.
On October 1, 2004 Zawahri called on Muslims
worldwide to help in the Palestinian struggle. Six
days later, al-Qaeda attacked three Egyptian
tourist resorts in the Sinai, killing 34 people,
about half of them Israelis.
On November 29, 2004, in a video statement
Zawahri said that the US invasion of Baghdad was
only the beginning of a Western occupation.
Terrorists attacked the US consulate in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia on the morning of December 6, killing
eight and wounding 15 others.
On June 17, Zawahri spoke again. On July 7
four bombs ripped through London's transport
system, killing nearly 60, including the four
suicide bombers.
On August 4, this senior al-Qaeda leader
issued perhaps the most specific threat of an
attack on Western interests. If the pattern is
repeated, a major terrorist outrage will be
carried out within the next three weeks. Britain
is again considered to be one of the most likely
targets.
Al-Qaeda confirms Iraq
link
It would now be increasingly hard to
argue that even if the war in Iraq is not the sole
motivation for recent acts of terrorism, it must
still be a major contributory factor behind the
suicide bomb attacks in London.
This would
appear to be a clear and understandable fact to
most observers, but any such linkage is still
being vigorously denied by Blair.
He was
forced on to the defensive over the London bomb
attacks for the first time on July 19, when a
leaked threat assessment from the Joint Terrorist
Analysis Center (JTAC) - an integral part of the
British security service, MI5 - specifically
warned less than a month before the July 7 attacks
that "events in Iraq are continuing to act as
motivation and a focus of a range of
terrorist-related activity in the UK".
The
report, leaked to The New York Times, also said
"at present there is not a group with both the
current intent and the capability to attack the
UK", a flawed conclusion that only increased the
pressure on the intelligence community to explain
its failure to anticipate the possibility that the
capital would be a prime terrorist target on the
opening day of the Group of Eight summit in
Gleneagles, Scotland.
Nor is the JTAC
assessment alone in establishing a link between
the bombing of London and Britain's involvement in
Iraq.
Chatham House, previously known as
The Royal Institute of International Affairs and
an internationally respected foreign affairs
think-tank, stated in a new report that the war in
Iraq had boosted al-Qaeda.
The Chatham
House report also highlighted the growing problems
the security services have when it rather bluntly
says that Britain's ability to carry out
counter-terrorism measures had been hampered
because the US was always in the driving seat in
deciding policy.
US alliance puts UK at
risk
It goes on to claim that Britain's
security efforts have been severely hampered as
"riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved
costly in terms of British and US military lives,
Iraqi lives, military expenditure and the damage
caused to the counter-terrorism campaign".
The most politically sensitive finding,
however, concludes there is "no doubt" the
invasion of Iraq has "given a boost to the
al-Qaeda network in propaganda, recruitment and
fundraising", while providing an ideal targeting
and training area for terrorists.
Blair
has strenuously denied such a claim and senior
ministers have responded to these arguments by
saying that the attacks on New York and Washington
on September 11 pre-dated the Iraq war and that
the root causes of al-Qaeda terrorism were
non-negotiable, such as the existence of the state
of Israel.
The war in Iraq: Complete
coverage
Critics have pointed out, however,
that while the Iraq war is not necessarily the
root cause of this new threat of home-grown
terrorism, it may well have intensified the
threat, as the JTAC assessment appears to
conclude.
Interestingly, it emerged during
the Hutton inquiry into the death of weapons
expert David Kelly that the prime minister had
been warned by the intelligence services that the
planned invasion of Iraq could increase the
terrorist threat to Britain. The leaked JTAC
report was therefore simply the first official
post-war confirmation of a probable link between
the Iraq war and terrorist activity in Britain.
Just 10 days after the first wave of
bombing, former Labour cabinet minister Clare
Short insisted that she had no doubt the July 7
London bombings were linked to Iraq and Palestine.
Interviewed on GMTV, Short said, "We are implicit
in the slaughter of large numbers of civilians in
Iraq and supporting a Middle East policy that for
the Palestinians creates this sense of double
standards - that feeds anger."
Growing
political criticism of Blair
In a further
damaging attack on the prime minister's position,
John McDonnell, the Labour member of parliament
for Hayes and Harlington and Chair of the Campaign
Group of Labour MPs, said it was "intellectually
unsustainable" to say the war in Iraq had not
motivated the London bombers.
"For as long
as Britain remains in occupation of Iraq, the
terrorist recruiters will have the argument they
seek to attract more susceptible young recruits to
the bomb team. Britain must withdraw now," he
said.
By July 19, a public opinion poll in
The Guardian newspaper was able to report that
two-thirds of Britons now believed that there was
an identifiable link between Blair's decision to
invade Iraq and the recent London bombings,
despite the government claims to the contrary.
The poll found that that some 75% of
voters believed that further attacks in Britain by
suicide bombers were also inevitable.
But
despite the mounting evidence that a link exists
and that the the government is losing the battle
to persuade people that terrorist attacks on the
UK have not been made more likely by the invasion
of Iraq, Blair has continued to lay the blame for
the terrorist attacks simply on the "twisted
teaching" of Islam and put the onus on Muslim
leaders to defeat such an "evil".
The
buck must stop with Blair
The British
government is still in denial that the bombings
have any connection with the invasion of Iraq or
its involvement in the US-led "war on terrorism".
The close alliance with the US and Britain's
involvement in the invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq may not justify terrorism, but they are an
added motivation.
Many Muslims would argue
that the empty threat posed by Saddam Hussein's
non-existent weapons of mass destruction provided
little or no justification for the eventual
invasion of Iraq and the deaths of tens of
thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.
It
is often conveniently forgotten that al-Qaeda in
its original form was an American creation.
Trained, equipped and directed by the Central
Intelligence Agency, Osama bin Laden's
organization tortured and killed countless young
Russian conscripts unlucky enough to have been
posted to Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was certainly not
unwilling to also kill and maim large numbers of
Afghan civilians in pursuit of America's regional
interests.
Double standards in the 'war
on terrorism'
Nor is al-Qaeda the only
organization linked to terrorism to have a US
paymaster. Even allowing for Indonesia, Zaire and
countless tin-pot Latin American military
dictatorships, one country in particular stands
out. Pakistan and its despised secret service, the
Inter-Services Intelligence have a long history of
actively supporting so-called "freedom fighters".
What in fact the Pakistan authorities
armed were the Taliban in Afghanistan and the
Kashmiri Islamic fighters who are responsible for
decades of terrorism inside Indian territory and
the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in
the world's largest democracy.
Yet the
government in Islamabad is treated as one of
Washington's closest allies in the "war on
terror".
Hypocrisy on this scale practiced
by the supposed leader of the free world is not a
pretty sight, nor is it the basis for a successful
foreign policy. Britain by virtue of its
uncritical and unwavering support for American
actions risks becoming a major victim of an
Islamic backlash.
While Iraq is a
motivation for terrorism, it is certainly not the
only cause.
The occupation of Arab lands;
the aggressive acquisition of Arab oil; the plight
of Palestinian refugees housed in squalid camps
for some 55 years; Israel's bloody invasion of
Lebanon and its later attempts to suppress the
Palestinian intifada; the lack of a truly
even-handed Western policy on the Middle East's
fundamental problems; Afghanistan; Iraq and the
threat to Iran all provide the driving force
behind the upsurge of Islamic terrorism.
It is fair to suggest that terrorism,
unless linked to a poplar political movement, has
never succeeded in its stated aims in the long
run. However, it is equally correct to say that
the defeat of terrorism is only ensured by winning
over the hearts and minds of the extremist's
potential supporters and with a policy as free of
blinkered unreality and hypocrisy as possible.
While there can never be an acceptable
justification for acts of terrorism, there can be
no escaping the fact of a link between the British
government's actions in the Middle East and the
reaction of Muslim extremism.
Following
these new threats of an imminent large-scale
strike by Islamic terrorists against British
targets, further denial by Blair and his ministers
of at least some responsibility for the
deteriorating security situation will only make
them appear ever more foolish and increasingly out
of touch with both reality and the majority of the
British people
Richard M Bennett
is an intelligence and security analyst.
(Copyright 2005 Richard M Bennett)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing. |
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