The report of the 9/11 Commission, unveiled in Washington on 22 July, makes salutary reading. It came out at a time when US officials say they have compelling evidence that Al-Qaida is planning a future attack on American soil. And given the number of high-profile events in the US between now and the presidential elections in November, Bin Ladens organization has no shortage of attractive dates and tempting targets.
At the same time, European governments are continuing to digest the impact of the bombings in Madrid on 11 March. As more evidence comes to light, it is clear that the attacks were the work of a largely Moroccan network which is well rooted in Western Europe and has links to the wider Al-Qaida movement. Militants suspected of involvement in the Madrid attacks have been arrested in at least four European countries France, Belgium and Italy as well as in Spain itself. This may suggest European co-operation is improving, but most experts think there is still a long way to go before obstacles to much more serious and sustained co-operation (differences in legal systems, problems of red tape, rivalries and suspicions between different security services) can be overcome. The bombings have also added to concerns about the extent of Islamic militancy in Morocco and have highlighted an unholy alliance between radical Islamists and drug traffickers.
The 9/11 Commissions report was much more than a detailed account of the planning and execution of the attacks of 11 September, and a technical enquiry into the failings of US intelligence and the need for tighter security at American ports and airports. It was a clarion call for change in American foreign policy, a forceful argument of the case that without a new, more considered, more multi-dimensional approach to the Islamic world, the war on terror will not be won.
Part of the challenge remains that of eliminating the terrorists and their infrastructure of support. In this regard, events since 9/11 have weakened Al-Qaida but at the same time made it more diffuse and therefore harder to track down. With the loss of its base in Afghanistan, and with its top leaders on the run, it has become even more decentralized. As a result, Bin Ladens local allies now operate with much greater autonomy.
Attacks over the last year or so have shown a new reliance on these local allies groups such as Salafia Jihadia in Morocco, Jemaah Islamiyah in south-east Asia, the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi group in Iraq. There has also been a new choice of targets. For the moment at least, Al-Qaida seems unable to carry out another 9/11-style attack on American soil. Instead its affiliates seem to be striking at targets of opportunity residential compounds in Riyadh, a Jewish cemetery in Casablanca, a hotel in Jakarta, synagogues and the British Consulate in Istanbul all soft targets in Muslim countries closely allied to the West.
These attacks reveal the limits of what the new Al-Qaida is currently capable of. Yet at the same time they show how much damage it is still able to cause, even with relatively low-tech even amateurish operations. Moreover the Madrid bombings showed not only the new geography of terror they were Al-Qaidas first successful operation on European soil but a cynical ability to influence European politics. Madrid exemplified more than raw violence; no less shocking was that Bin Laden showed that he too was capable of regime change.
The Madrid attacks also made clear how fatefully Iraq and the war on terror have become intertwined. Before the invasion of Iraq in March last year, the two issues were completely separate. There was (as the 9/11 Commission has now confirmed) no link of any importance between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida. Iraq was not an arena of terror or of jihad. Now it is both. And while the nationalist element in the Iraqi insurgency should not be underestimated, the presence there of hundreds of foreign Islamist fighters is without doubt an unwelcome complication of the Iraq problem.
The report of the 9/11 Commission highlights with stark clarity that winning the war against Al-Qaida and radical Islamist groups with similar agendas will be a generational struggle. It calls for a new global strategy, one which is at least as much political as military. The problem, in short, is not merely Bin Laden but the multiple factors which gave birth to him and his ideology, and which give both their continuing appeal poverty and illiteracy in the Muslim world, the lack of political reform and womens empowerment, the dearth of hope, especially among the young.
Bin Laden may be said to be winning, but only in the limited sense that he is still in business and still capable of spreading violence and terror. His long-term goals (defeating America, toppling the regimes of the Muslim world and replacing them with a revived Caliphate) are unrealizable. They are mere utopian dreams which offer nothing to Muslim societies undergoing painful transitions to modernity.
But the fact that Bin Laden is incapable of achieving a final and definitive victory is of little comfort to his adversaries. Even if a new global strategy is adopted by the Americans and their allies, which cannot be taken for granted, the task ahead looks even more daunting than the great challenge of the last century winning the Cold War.
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