Author: Humphrey Hawksley
Publication: The Week
Date: June 8, 2003
URL: http://www.the-week.com/23jun08/lucky.d.htm
Introduction: Al Qaeda may be studying
three weak points, including India
American President George Bush's
war on terror and al Qaeda's war on America are swirling around two parallel
universes, both of which at times seem streaked with fantasy. For the US,
if terror had been the only cause, then Iraq would never have been an issue.
The accusations of links with al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction
remain unproven. If Osama bin Laden's war aim had been to secure a US military
withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, then why bomb it just days after America
conceded him that point? But the post September 11 world is becoming entrenched
in a mix of extreme ideology.
In America's case, the neo-conservative
agenda advocates the democratisation of west Asia, with a moral right to
intervene militarily if necessary. After the defeat of Afghanistan and
Iraq, the new targets are Syria and Iran, together with the anti-Israeli
guerrilla group they bankroll, the Lebanese-based Hizbollah.
Al Qaeda's motive is less clear.
Its anti-American stand has much support among Islamic communities, but
it has failed to win allies with any real power-even the more conservative
Islamic nations such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Nor have its attempts
to foment grassroots uprisings worked as proved by the fact that not one
American embassy was stormed during the Iraq war.
Al Qaeda is a terror organisation
with no political base or apparent end goal. It is the global arena's serial
killer. It gets emotional kicks from the havoc it wreaks. Its key players
are obsessed technicians more concerned with the intricate workings of
their bombs than the cause for which they are constructed. It is this which
makes it so dangerous.
So what are its targets and where
will it strike next?
The Bali and Moroccan bombings suggest
that attacks in Europe and America are, at present, too risky for al Qaeda.
France, which was rocked with Islamic bombings in the mid-nineties, has
swept through the ZmigrZ Algerian community making dozens of arrests of
key suspects. Germany has learned its lesson from missing the Hamburg cell
of al Qaeda, which ended up carrying out the September 11 attack.
Europol, the European Union's administrative
police force, has installed a massive data base at its headquarters in
the Hague. Spain, Belgium, Italy-all countries which have uncovered al
Qaeda cells-have efficient crime-breaking intelligence agencies which are
making headway.
Amid the formidable resources of
the United States is the National Security Agency based at Fort Meade,
between Washington and Baltimore, which can eavesdrop on al Qaeda communications
anywhere in the world. This intelligence is shared through a system known
as Echelon to Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and 'on a case
by case basis' to US allies throughout the world.
One of the hallmarks of al Qaeda
is its high profile attacks spaced some time apart. Yet, although it would
dearly love to hit again at the heart of western democracy, a strike such
as September 11 in the near future is very unlikely.
Intelligence experts say a reformed
al Qaeda may be studying three weak points around the world, where a coordinated
operation on soft targets could yield devastating results. They are the
southern Philippines and parts of Malaysia and Indonesia, Iraq and India.
The southern Philippines has for
a long time been an unsettled place. The present low intensity war being
carried out by separatist Muslim groups, including the Abu Sayef, is being
referred to locally as the fourth Moro jihad.
The first Moro jihad was against
the Spanish invasion lasting from 1521 to 1898, a total of 377 years. The
second began immediately against the American colonisers whom the Muslims
fought for 47 years until 1946.
The third phase challenged their
new Filipino masters. It saw the brutal Moro wars of the 1970s, and was
peppered with failed peace agreements. Then after al Qaeda lost its base
in Afghanistan in 2001, many of its operatives fled across the porous sea
borders to take sanctuary there. The war on terror marked the start of
the fourth Moro jihad.
The plan is to create an area of
Islamic control which crosses the borders into Indonesia and Malaysia,
stretching from the southern Philippines taking in the major cities such
as Zamboanga and Davao City, through the islands of Jolo and Tawi Tawi
on the Sulu archipelago, and across to the western coast of Borneo, taking
in Sabah, Sarawak and significantly, the oil-rich sultanate of Brunei.
It would also include the western areas on the Malaysian peninsula which
are already in control of Islamic political parties.
Malaysian intelligence says al Qaeda
has identified this whole region as Daulah Islamiah Nusantara or the sovereign
Islamic archipelago. Anywhere it is liable to be attacked, particularly
airports and luxury holiday resorts.
America's occupation of Iraq has
now been given an official mandate by the United Nations. US and British
troops will be there for at least a year, probably many more. The US will
control the north. Polish troops working with Ukrainians and Bulgarians
will take the south-central sector, while the British will remain in the
south.
Former Iraq president Saddam Hussein's
claim that the invasion force would be bogged down and subject to a Vietnam-style
humiliation proved to be yet another fantasy. But as the new situation
settles, the US presence will become more politically and militarily vulnerable.
Driving into post-war Iraq from
Kuwait, you go through the severed wire which once marked the UN de-militarised
zone set up after the last Gulf War, and stop at a set of white PortaCabins,
which are the Kuwaiti immigration and customs. After that, there are no
checks whatsoever. No American or Iraqi official stamps your passport.
No one searches your car.
In the six-hour drive to Baghdad,
there are no permanent American checkpoints. The Americans cordon off places
they need secured. Many of the troops are highly trained fighting men who
now resent spending days in high temperatures, manning roadblocks, catching
petty thieves and even settling domestic disputes. They carry out occasional
patrols in their armoured vehicles.
But most of Iraq is being left to
fend for itself. With 30,000 former Ba'ath party officials banned from
senior jobs and 4,00,000 soldiers sacked from the military, this is now
a breeding ground for discontent. The American invasion has lifted Saddam
Hussein's iron lid on tribal and religious rivalries. Should al Qaeda and
its allies wish to exploit it, Iraq is wide open. A single successful suicide
attack against an American patrol could be devastating for morale. A series
of attacks would force the US to rethink its policy.
In the complex world of Islamic
politics, however, al Qaeda might well have enemies where it thought its
friends should be. The main anti-American religious force in Iraq are the
Shias, whose equivalent to the Vatican in Rome is the holy city of Najaf.
From there, the Shia tentacles stretch throughout southern Iraq, across
to Iran and Syria and to the Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, which has been
named as a target in the war on terror.
How Washington handles these issues
and how Iran, Syria and the Iraqi Shias react will be crucial to al Qaeda's
future strategy. The Hizbollah is the only Arab military force which has
defeated Israel, which withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon two years
ago, after a 22-year occupation. Its spiritual leader, the Grand Ayatollah
Fadlallah, is the survivor of a 1986 Israeli assassination attempt. The
present leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is a listed terrorist in Washington
and constantly in hiding.
The Hizbollah itself denies seeking
weapons of mass destruction, nor that it had plans to do anything against
America in Iraq. It claims it has no ambitions except what it has already
achieved with the Israeli expulsion from Lebanon. It is taking part in
Lebanon's new democracy and has a number of members in Parliament.
Yet, defence analyst Loren B. Thompson
at the conservative Lexington Institute in the US believes that American
special forces may be sent in to assassinate some Hizbollah leaders.
Democracy is a relative thing, particularly
in that region, he says. From the viewpoint of the US a country that cannot
prevent its territory from being used as a base for attacks against other
countries is, by definition, a failed state. It lacks sovereignty, therefore
external powers have a legitimacy to act to prevent them from becoming
a threat.
Should Iran or Syria feel under
pressure from Washington, or should al Qaeda be looking for a substantive
ally, the Hizbollah is at present an organisation which could turn either
way. It could join with al Qaeda to train up suicide bombers to take on
US troops in Iraq (as its founders did with the bombing of the US marine
barracks in Beirut in 1983). Or it could continue along the parliamentary
process as the Irish republican movement is doing in Northern Ireland.
That, however, will take time, and
for the Bush administration time tends to be something which is always
running out. It is worth noting how news reports rarely pinpoint al Qaeda
directly for attacks.
The phrasing generally refers to
groups with links to al Qaeda. In France, the link was to Algerian organisations.
In west Asia, it is to the Hamas and Hizbollah. In east Asia, it is to
Abu Sayef and others. So in south Asia, the compass points to Pakistan
and the myriad groups it has nurtured both in Afghanistan before the fall
of the Taliban and in Kashmir which remains one of the most dangerous global
conflicts.
Rudderless Pakistan has far more
links to terror than Iraq ever had. If the US wants to wipe out terror,
it would redraw the face of Pakistan, administer it and try again to set
up democratic institutions. But it will not and it may be too late anyway.
Pakistan bankrolled the unpalatable
Taliban and allowed it to play host to Osama bin Laden. Many parts of the
country remain under control of men who sympathise with al Qaeda.
The Pakistani leader, General Pervez
Musharraf, plays a balancing act as a national hero, a protector of Islam
and American ally, which is so impossible in the present climate that it
is only a matter of time before the charade explodes.
It is natural that Prime Minister
Vajpayee, in the evening of his career, should want to make peace with
the nation which threatens the world more than any other. He will fail,
but that does not mean he should not make the effort.
Pakistan is the biggest goal of
al Qaeda. It dwarfs all others-Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Philippines, Brunei,
even the dream of blowing up the White House and Downing Street to rubble
would fade to nothing against getting control of Pakistan.
In democratic politics, policies
are forged to meet the cycles of elections, be it five or three years,
or the unpredictability of a small majority or weak coalition. In the world
of extreme Islam, campaigns can last generations, passed down from father
to son, until all issues are forgotten except the battle itself.
While Washington is afraid of weapons
of mass destruction being passed from rogue states to terror groups, in
Pakistan there is a nation with a ready-made nuclear weapon, a weak leader,
and power groups which are bringing the country closer and closer to the
thinking of al Qaeda.
The greatest irony of all in the
war on terror is that al Qaeda gains control of a nuclear weapon not by
force but by allying itself to a Pakistani political party which gains
power through democratic elections. And like with September 11, no one
will know it is there, until it strikes.
(The author is a correspondent of
the BBC.)
