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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Al-Qaeda is more a state of mind than an organization - French expert |
| 2005-09-12 |
| A four-year worldwide manhunt has delivered some hard blows to Al Qaeda, but its strength now lies in the fact that it needs no organised network to be a deadly threat, analysts and experts say. The London terror attacks in July showed how apprentice terrorists are acting on their account. One of the alleged perpetrators of the failed July 21 attack on the London transport network, Hamdi Issac, told investigators after his arrest in Rome: âWe had no contact with the organisation of (Osama) Bin Laden. We knew it existed - we accessed its programmes through the Internet - but nothing directly.â Though international secret services say a hard core of experienced terrorists remains, waging an international jihad and still formidable even as they are being hunted down, the main danger comes from the force of inspiration Al Qaeda represents. âIt is more a state of mind, an ideology, than a physical entity,â said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the centre for the study of terrorism and political violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. âIt is like an amoeba: it takes on a multiple life form that can quickly crystallise and quickly dissipate. It is like a ghost: it pops up everywhere and yet itâs nowhere. It is now an inspiration, that will last long after Bin Laden: it is going to be here for decades.â In the northern English city of Leeds, home to three of the four July 7 London bombers, who killed 56 people including themselves, 54-year-old Pakistani immigrant Ejaz Hussain organised marches of sympathy for the victims a day after the attacks. Speaking of the bombers, he pointed to his head and said: âAl Qaeda is inside.â Jeremy Binnie, an analyst with the London-based Janeâs defence publisherâs terrorism and insurgency centre, said: âTo be Al Qaeda, all you have to do is go out and do something, do an act of violence. You donât actually have to have any contact with Bin Laden and other senior commanders,â he said. âIncreasingly, these kinds of major attack have been perpetrated by grassroots guys who donât have the kind of connections that we would have seen maybe in the previous generation of what would be described as Al Qaeda.â The bombers who killed hundreds of people in simultaneous blasts at US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi on August 7, 1998, could be described as âclassic Al Qaeda,â Binnie said. âWhereas these guys (behind the latest attacks) are a sort of a new generation of people who are radicalised much more locally and they attack much more locally as well, which is a pretty worrying development in terms of how many other guys are out there.â Bin Laden, forced to avoid modern communications that might betray his whereabouts, may have no significant operational capabilities, but he no longer needs them. The Al Qaeda leader represented a deadly threat because he had the terrifying power of being able to inspire through his use of words and ideas, said Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation think tank. French criminologist Xavier Raufer, co-author of the recent work âThe Al-Qaeda Enigmaâ, believes the gravest problem is that the West has not learned from its mistakes. âIf you look at the major attacks since September 11 you can see that there has been no progress. It is a disaster. We run after people, capture them, they spend their lives in prison, but it does not matter. They are kamikazes anyway. âThe basic strategy is âknow your enemy.â So long as we fail to understand that the terroristsâ grievances are mostly political and that we have to look at the problem from a political standpoint, we wonât stand a chance.â |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 There should be a a screen saver like Seti@Home, that sends DOS attacks to all listed islam sites while the computer is idle. I bet that would put a dent in recruitment via internet. |
| Posted by: Shelet Jaiting1602 2005-09-12 21:09 |
| #4 Yep they need to understand we are going to kill them all. |
| Posted by: Huposing Phaitle9864 2005-09-12 17:15 |
| #3 âThe basic strategy is âknow your enemy.â So long as we fail to understand that the terroristsâ grievances are mostly political and that we have to look at the problem from a political standpoint, we wonât stand a chance.â So Mr. Raqufer believes we only have a chance if we turn over Israel, kill all the jews and convert to Islam? I think we understand them. This will end only when they understand us. |
| Posted by: DoDo 2005-09-12 12:08 |
| #2 I haven't read this particular book about AQ, but Xavier Raufer seems to know his stuff, judging from what I read from him before. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2005-09-12 08:51 |
| #1 I have to agree that al-Qaeda exists in cells, connected by internet ideology. Ergo: ban all pro jihadi websites. And I would include jihad unspun. |
| Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler 2005-09-12 02:00 |