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Bin Laden's terrorists are just as likely to be living quietly in a small flat somewhere in Europe as hiding in caves in remote Afghanistan, write Peter Fray and Paul Daley.
When confessed, Melbourne-trained suicide pilot Mohammed Afroz walked free from an Indian jail three months ago, he was immediately put back under intelligence surveillance by European-based Western agencies. Police in New Delhi had released him after becoming convinced that Afroz's al-Qaeda credentials had been "trumped up", probably by the police who arrested him in Mumbai late last year.
He wasn't involved in training pilots to crash planes into Melbourne's Rialto Tower or the British Houses of Parliament. And he wasn't part of a small, British-based al-Qaeda cell. He was, they say, a victim of poor police conduct. But others were - and are - less dismissive of the Indian-born Afroz, with Western intelligence sources confirming to the Herald that he remains of active interest.
It is understood Afroz was released in India because there wasn't enough evidence to keep him inside. British terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, who has followed Afroz's path closely, says it would be foolhardy to ignore him. "We can't 100 per cent take his statements as accurate, but they shouldn't be dismissed," he says. "He was part of a cell. British agencies are still investigating him. His story fits very much into how al- Qaeda operates."
It also fits with how Western agencies - or, in India's case, Western-trained agencies - cope with terrorist suspects, especially outside the current theatre of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The rule of law and respect for human rights keep getting in the way.
DURING the late 1990s, Irish detectives began carefully watching a 36-year-old Algerian-born man who ostensibly worked for an Islamic charity in Dublin. Initially their interest was aroused by his financial links to renegade Irish nationalist militants. While Hamid Aich ran the "charity" from a flat in Dublin, European and American intelligence agencies have since established that he was a key fundraiser in Europe for al-Qaeda.
Like Afroz, Aich was briefly arrested in 1999 and then released for lack of evidence. And like Afroz, he has since kept a low profile, especially as police and intelligence agencies have found out more about him.
When detectives raided his flat soon after his flight from Dublin they found a cache of bomb-making equipment, including sophisticated timing mechanisms. It was later established that the timers were the same as those found in the car of Ahmed Ressam, a bin Laden operative, who was stopped while crossing the border from Canada to America. He had been on his way to plant the so-called "Millennium Bomb" at Los Angeles airport.
Agencies are now convinced Aich was a master bomb-maker and money launderer. Intelligence sources say he and Osama bin Laden used the charity to raise money for at least 20 terror groups, including at least three with links to Palestinian militants.
PATIENCE and planning - and the willingness to live undetected in Europe and other Western nations for years on end - have emerged as key factors in al-Qaeda's unparalleled campaign of terror over the past decade.
While it may be more palatable to think of bin Laden's terrorists as squatting in isolated caves in remote parts of Afghanistan or Pakistan, the truth is they are just as likely to be living in a small flat in Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Ireland or Britain.
Of the 1600 al-Qaeda members held in detention across the world, which includes almost 600 held at the US base in Cuba, more than 150 are in Western Europe.
But shielded in part by Europe's large and law-abiding Muslim population, and protected by the inherent fairness of the legal system, they have proved often difficult to arrest and even harder to keep in custody.
This week, Spain's anti-terrorist judge, Baltasar Garzon, ordered the seizure of three men on terrorist charges. One of them, Ghasoub Al-Abrash Ghalyoun, a Spanish national of Syrian origin, was found to have several videos of potential terrorist targets in the United States. They included New York's Twin Towers and Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
The videos, which were five years old, were described by Spain's Interior Minister, Angel Acebes, as "nothing like the tapes that a tourist would make". They had the Twin Towers from "every angle and from every distance".
But Garzon had already arrested Ghalyoun earlier this year, in April. The tapes were in his possession at that time. Yet like Afroz in India and Aich in Dublin, authorities finally had to release Ghalyoun, a member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, for lack of evidence. For several weeks, he had been a free man. His rearrest this week shows two things: how vital several European countries are to al-Qaeda's network and how difficult they are to crack.
CLAUDIA Schmid is the head of Berlin's secret service, the Verfassungsschutz. A friendly, open and sharp woman, she was one of the few Western security chiefs willing to speak on the record about the difficulties European agencies face in tracking down al-Qaeda. Suspects make life hard for their investigators, she says. They live normal lives and appear as good, law-abiding citizens. And they are everywhere. "It's such a wide network," she says. "It's not just Germany, it's not just Europe, it's not just the Middle East. We find out more and more but we do not know the whole picture yet."
The complete picture will not emerge until Western agencies manage to physically infiltrate al-Qaeda. Schmid says she is optimistic it will eventually happen, but it is difficult as most cell members are highly suspicious of outsiders and tightly organised. "[Informers] have to be a traitor against friends as well as religion," she says. "Worldwide we have so many non-aligned groups. Mujahideen, small groups, they don't have a leadership that is organised."
But they do have an organisation. Estimates vary, but experts say there are at least six active operational cells in Western Europe. None is believed to be as developed or organised as Mohammed Atta's Hamburg cell (see graphic) which, with assistance from cell members in Spain and France, planned and executed the US attacks last September.
Increasingly, Spain has emerged as a vital staging post for al-Qaeda activity, especially given its ease of access to North Africa. In November, Judge Garzon arrested a Spanish national, Abu Dahdah, and seven others in relation to the US attacks. They were the first accused al-Qaeda members to be charged in Europe. There is little doubt that Dahdah, at least, was directly linked to the US attacks.
Phone taps between Dahdah and a man named Shakur clearly referred to the September attacks, Judge Garzon says. In one, recorded on August 27, Shakur says to Dahdah: "We have entered in the field of aviation and we have also beheaded the bird."
Despite the recent success of Garzon and other lower- profile enforcers, the al-Qaeda network remains largely intact and, agencies believe, actively planning. Members of the network get their specific orders directly from a select handful of senior al-Qaeda operatives, and more general calls to arms - along with spiritual nourishment - via video performances from al-Qaeda spokesmen, such as Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, and Internet links.
Behind the operational cells is an unknown number of support cells which provide logistical help. Dr Gunaratna, the author of the recently published Inside Al Qaeda - Global Network of Terror and a research fellow in terrorism at Scotland's St Andews University, argues that al-Qaeda is regrouping in Europe. "The core has been arrested but many cells remain. These people are in no hurry to attack," he says. "
IT'S A war which has an almost endless supply of targets. Most recently they have included (see graphic) plans to bomb British and American warships off Gibraltar, foiled by Moroccan police last month; British shoe bomber Richard Reid's ill-fated attempt last December to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami; and Afroz's assault on the Houses of Parliament and Tower Bridge, which was due on September 11 last year.
Britain's strident support for the US-led attacks in Afghanistan and, probably next year, Iraq, have made it a target of "equally high risk" for future terrorist attacks, according to European diplomatic and intelligence sources. "In some ways Britain and British interests in Europe are more vulnerable given that so many active al-Qaeda cells exist throughout Europe, particularly in France, Spain and we suspect still in England and Ireland," an intelligence source says.
Britain's intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, or the Metropolitan Police will not talk about individuals and targets on the record. But in response to questions from the Herald, the police confirmed they continued to "carry out a large numbers of inquiries" on behalf of the FBI and were "vigorously investigating" al-Qaeda's links in Britain. "There were a number of people who left the UK both prior to and after September 11 whose activities continue to be of interest to us." Recently, Assistant Commissioner David Veness confirmed that: "London, above all other cities, had been a focus of communication activity for al-Qaeda."
GUNARATNA is convinced that outside the US, authorities are simply not doing enough to combat and break down the al-Qaeda network. Islamic organisations which attract people like Afroz and provide them with ideological and financial succour should, he argues, be outlawed. Until that happens, Europe and countries with a similar "soft" approach, including Australia, will be vulnerable to terrorist attack. "The organisation of al-Qaeda is much intact in Europe," he says. "It's the same problem you have in Australia. The Europeans are not attacking the organisations, only if they engage in terrorist activity or support.
"They [authorities] should criminalise organisations that advocate terrorism, martyrdom, radical Islam and are actively engaged in recruitment. There are organisations that support the aims of al-Qaeda that are still functioning in the UK, Australia and across Europe."
MOST Western European countries, from Britain to Spain and north to Germany and Denmark, have large and growing populations of young Muslim men, a small but active minority of whom are attracted to militant Islam. In the Netherlands, where Muslim communities make up half of the inner-city population in centres like Rotterdam and The Hague, intelligence agencies have warned that mosques had become recruitment grounds for missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In response to such claims, the incoming right-wing coalition government, led by Jan Peter Balkenende, has supported a parliamentary inquiry into the Netherlands' 800,000 Muslims and their links with fundamentalism. It will look at the funding of mosques, training of clerics and the beliefs of Dutch Muslims concerning the country's own liberal attitudes to homosexuality, drugs and soft crime.
Human rights activists are, understandably, alarmed by the move, as are Dutch Muslims. A Muslim community spokesman, Yassin Hartog, told Britain's Guardian newspaper: "One has to wonder whether the government doesn't apply different standards to different sections of the population."
Hartog clearly has a point. But
are such intrusive investigations the price Western European countries
will have to pay to feel relaxed about living in the age of Islamic militancy?
For people like Gunaratna, the answer is yes.
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