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Euros disquieted over recent terrorist activities
The preliminary finding by Italian investigators that those who took part in the attempted bomb attacks on London on July 21 were probably unconnected to any larger terrorism network raises a concern for intelligence and security services world-wide: there is a new breed of Islamic terrorism that has no link to old al-Qaeda structures.

According to western security officials, the topic of home-grown, radicalised Muslim extremists shifted near the top of counter-terrorism agendas more than a year ago during regular bilateral discussion between the US and the UK’s homeland security services after a series of arrests of domestic terror suspects in both countries.

The concern was heightened by US intelligence, which says the senior leadership group surrounding Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, remains isolated, unable to direct or to commission specific attacks on western targets.

According to US intelligence officials, several al-Qaeda affiliates have had operations delayed because of a failure to receive instructions from the network’s senior leadership. That, they believe, illustrates Mr bin Laden’s increasing role as a propagandist rather than as an operational leader.

Cofer Black, who recently stepped down as the State Department’s top counter-terrorism official, told Congress last year that US-led efforts to cut off al-Qaeda’s senior leadership had produced a second tier of leadership, less sophisticated and less well-trained, degrading the group’s capabilities.

Not all officials agree. Retired Admiral James Loy, former number two at the US department of homeland security and senior counsellor at the Washington-based Cohen Group, believes the new leadership is potentially as dangerous, since it remains largely unknown to intelligence officials and is widely dispersed.

“I liken that to the drug wars of the 1980s when there were five or six cartels in Colombia and we took them down,” said Adm Loy. “Unfortunately, [the result] was that instead of five in-command families, all these lieutenants came up. So instead of five in-control families, there are 50. Unfortunately, that’s what is happening now, and that’s a scary proposition.”

Of equal concern, say experts and officials, is the belief that Mr bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be using a recent campaign of audio and video tapes in order to radicalise western Muslims resident in targeted countries.

These locals, disillusioned by US and British policy in Iraq, could be further influenced by recent admonishments by the al-Qaeda leaders that “the most pressing duty after faith” is to fight as part of a global jihad, officials argue.

“Osama bin Laden has relied on Muslim resentment towards US policies in his call for a defensive jihad to oppose an American assault on the Islamic faith and culture,” vice-admiral Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, told Congress this year.

“He contends that all faithful Muslims are obliged to fight, or support the jihad financially if not physically capable of fighting.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have said that while overseas al-Qaeda members remain their biggest concern, last year’s Madrid bombings heightened attention being paid to the potential effect al-Qaeda propaganda may have on “radical American converts”.

“The potential recruitment of radicalised American Muslim converts continues to be a concern and poses an increasing challenge for the FBI since recruitment is subtle and, many times, self-initiated,” Robert Mueller, FBI director, said in an unclassified report to Congress.

US authorities have already charged a handful of local Muslims with terrorism-related charges, including Ali al-Timimi, an American-born imam sentenced last month to life in prison for recruiting Muslims in his northern Virginia community for Taliban training camps in Pakistan.

Ernest James Ujaama, an American-born Seattle resident, was sentenced last year to two years in prison for attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in rural Oregon.

UK authorities last year arrested eight Britons of Pakistani decent in a raid that uncovered hundreds of pounds of fertiliser that police suspected was to be used to build a bomb.

Some experts think al-Qaeda’s Pakistan-based leadership still controls terrorist operations. The July 7 London bombings, they say, had hallmarks of the old leadership’s operations.

“Bin Laden’s role is really that of a venture capitalist,” said Dominic Armstrong, director of research and intelligence for Aegis Defence Services, a London-based private security group. “If he likes the idea, he can provide funding, training and expertise.”
Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-08-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=125779