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Analysts say 2005 is a good year for terrorists
BRITAIN, Egypt and Jordan suffered their worst terrorist attacks this year and hundreds more lives were lost in bombings elsewhere, making 2005 a good year for groups like al-Qaeda, analysts said.

At the same time, police and intelligence authorities also enjoyed success, arresting hundreds of suspects in numerous operations over the past 12 months.

But more violence looks likely in 2006, with Italy seen as a prime target as it hosts the Winter Olympics and prepares for an election, analysts warned.

This year began fairly peacefully on the attack front, aside from the daily carnage in Iraq, which is still an effective war zone nearly three years after the US-led invasion.

The relative serenity was shattered on July 7 in London when four presumed Islamist suicide bombers blew up rucksacks packed with explosives on three rush-hour subway trains and a bus killing themselves and 52 other people.

Hundreds more commuters were injured, some horrifically, in Britain's deadliest terrorist strike and the first suicide bombing in western Europe.

Two weeks later, a second band of four would-be bombers failed in an attempt to repeat the July 7 carnage.

The alleged attackers and a number of presumed accomplices have been arrested, charged and are awaiting trial. But questions remain about whether the two strikes were linked and if a mastermind is still roaming free.

The Al-Qaeda network, headed by the world's most wanted man Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for the London blasts as well as a string of others.

Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh was ripped apart on July 23 when three suicide bombers unleased a trail of destruction that left some 70 people dead, including more than a dozen foreign tourists.

The al-Qaeda Organisation in the Levant and Egypt said it carried out the multiple bombings – the worst it Egypt's history. They struck the area less than one year after a previous attack further up the Sinai peninsula.

Separately, the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed a triple hotel bombing in Jordan's capital Amman on November 9 in which 59 people died.

Summing up 2005, Robert Ayers, a security expert for the London-based think tank Chatham House, described it as a victory for terror groups over democracy. "I think it is a win for the terrorists," Mr Ayers said.

"We are seeing democratic governments becoming increasingly non-democratic with regard to their people and their response to terrorism," he said.

Following the London bombings, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government compiled tough new laws to crack down on Islamic extremism in the country after it emerged that the July 7 attackers were home-grown Islamists.

However, Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at St Andrews University in Scotland, noted that the government had to water down its proposals because of opposition to their impact on human rights.

He said the authorities this year, particularly in Britain, learned a lot about how to handle Islamic extremism.

"While it was a good year for the terrorists it was also a good year for the authorities," Mr Ranstorp said.

Britain's counter-terrorism policies following July 7 had become a model for the rest of the world, he said.

Despite better intelligence-gathering and awareness, attackers still slipped through the net.

On October 1, 20 people were killed by three suicide bombers on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali. The bombings came almost three years after a nightclub attack there that left 202 people dead.

Both blasts were blamed on the Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah.

India also became the target of a major terrorist onslaught, this time linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based guerrilla group.

Sixty-two people were killed in the Indian capital New Delhi on October 29 when two bombs tore through markets and a third was detonated on a bus.

Turning to next year, Mr Ayers and Mr Ranstorp predicted more of the same.

"Pressure will continue to be brought to bear on western Europe and the United States," said Mr Ayers.

Mr Ranstorp was more specific. "I think Italy – given that it is host of the Olympic Games and given the Italian elections – is likely to be the next front line in the war on terror," he said.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been a staunch ally of US President George W. Bush since the unprecedented September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-12-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=138586