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| Terror Networks | |||
| The secret war against al-Qaeda | |||
| 2004-02-10 | |||
| The BBC finds links between al-Qaeda and Algerians. I guess it must be true, the BBC doesn’t lie: The West has never encountered an enemy like al-Qaeda before. The problem for the world’s intelligence agencies is that it is not a unified organisation with an identifiable structure, like the IRA, but an amalgam of groups around the world whose members embrace Osama bin Laden’s ideology of Yup, that’ll be them. The men were all finally convicted of plotting to bomb Strasbourg. What was believed to be a reconnaissance video was found in the flat, its most prominent feature a lingering sequence on that city’s famous Christmas market. That, investigators believed, was the intended target. If the bomb had gone off, there would have been carnage. The four prisoners were Algerians whom German investigators refer to as unaligned mujahideen, rather than al-Qaeda members.
I’ll give them that. The role of the UK’s MI5 and Special Branch was also crucial since many Algerian extremists had sought refuge in London after the crackdown in France. The centre of the network was believed to be in London. Been a lot of "North Africans" arrested there. Investigators were even more alarmed when they discovered that its tentacles crossed the Atlantic to Canada and the US, where cells had been planning to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on Millennium Eve, 1999. The would-be bomber, another Algerian, Ahmed Ressam, who trained in Afghanistan, was arrested and the plot was foiled just in time. We got very lucky. But was the hand of al-Qaeda behind the network? What appeared to be conclusive proof came from Italian intelligence agents who intercepted a phone call from Milan to Afghanistan. It was made by a suspected Egyptian terrorist, Es Sayed, who had fled to Italy. He’s believed to have been calling Abu Zubaydah, one of al-Qaeda’s senior military commanders and the holder of the keys to the Afghan training camps. Italian intelligence concludes that Es Sayed had been sent to Europe by al-Qaeda to radicalise and recruit young Muslims for Osama bin Laden’s holy war. Es Sayed is subsequently thought to have been killed fighting for the Taleban. Is there a body? The problem for the intelligence agencies is that they’re now dealing with an enemy that has restructured in response to the setback it has suffered. It now operates in autonomous cells that can change shape and tactics at will. Finding and neutralising them before they can strike is even more difficult. And the greatest fear is that a suicide bomber, a lone wolf, will emerge. As David Veness chillingly warns, an attack on the UK is not a matter of if but when. I asked him how long the war would last. "Years," he said. At least. | |||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 The four prisoners were Algerians whom German investigators refer to as unaligned mujahideen, rather than al-Qaeda members. As Rantburgers have pointed out more than once, it is utterly childish to see the WoT as ALL about fighting this single thing, AQ-- even more childish to think it's all about capturing one man, OBL. |
| Posted by: wuzzalib 2004-2-10 4:57:35 PM |