Share The Truth: Al-Qaeda — the second coming

Jason Burke

In a major investigation, an expert on terror reveals the outfit is evolving into a potent new threat.

Five and a half years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is linked, rightly or wrongly, to violence across half the globe.

For Al-Qaeda, there is no shortage of new faces to fill the ranks

FOR HIS 40th birthday, Osama bin Laden's followers gave their leader a white stallion. Osama,a keen horseman despite back problems, rode for hours through the dusty farmland and hills around his base north of Jalalabad, the eastern Afghan city.

On Saturday, the leader of Al-Qaeda turned 50. It is unlikely that the gesture was repeated. Almost all the men who gave their chief the stallion are now dead, the base has been dismantled and a similar ride would be to risk detection, identification, and a pinpoint missile strike. Yet though he may lack horses and veteran associates, Osama is far from finished. Indeed, nine years after his declaration of war on the West and five and a half years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, he is as present as ever on the world stage, linked, rightly or wrongly, to violence across half the globe.

This weekend there is talk of an Al-Qaeda connection to the recent spate of particularly bloody bombings in Iraq. The trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the terror group's associate who originally planned the 9/11 strikes, is due to start in Guantanamo Bay and will spark massive media interest. In the U.K. a series of trials of alleged Islamic militants, some accused of having links to Osama's closest collaborators, continue. In Afghanistan, where British casualties mount every week, Taliban militants boast of the forces they have gathered for a "spring offensive."

The continuing evolution of the phenomenon of "Al-Qaeda" continues to surprise — and deeply worry — those charged with keeping us safe. An investigation by The Observer, involving hours of face-to-face interviews with current and former government and military officials, experts and intelligence analysts in Afghanistan, Britain, France, Germany, and Morocco, as well as sources contacted in a dozen other countries including the United States and Pakistan, reveals why — and discloses the frightening reality of the changing threat.

The camp is high in the mountains, near the Afghan city of Khost, at the end of a dirt track on the border with Pakistan. It is not much to look at — a few mud buildings and some tents that are barely visible on the satellite photographs that Western intelligence experts spend hours poring over. It does not even have a name. But it is the symbol of a newly resurgent Al-Qaeda "hard core" or "headquarters" that is, according to analysts, "more dangerous than ever."

For the camp is a training centre, run by a mixed team of Afghan, Arab, and Pakistani instructors, fundraisers, and ideologues. It is only one of half-a-dozen such installations set up in the past 18 months. It is in these camps that dozens of British citizens are thought to have been trained and then sent into Afghanistan to fight in recent months. The men, all of whom come from families with strong links to Pakistan, are said to number between 20 and 30 although details are scant. Security services have traced the individuals to the camps — most of which are on the Pakistani side of the border — but then lost the trail.

The men have either died in combat, are still fighting American, British or other NATO nations' forces in the country or are "on their way home," say sources in the U.S., the U.K., and southwest Asia. "We just hope they are dead," one source admitted. "It's best that they blow themselves up over there than over here."

The men, like the camp, are part of a new wave of Al-Qaeda activism that has astonished security services. As well as the British recruits suspected of having died in Afghanistan, our investigation revealed that:

Britain is universally considered to be the nation "most threatened by a major terrorist strike" outside the Middle East or southwest Asia because of its strong support for American foreign policies, relative accessibility compared to the U.S., and strong historic connections to Pakistan which allows hundreds of thousands of British subjects to travel virtually unmonitored every year. Though only a tiny minority is involved in militancy, the ease of access to the country for Urdu-speaking Britons is a huge advantage to those bent on violence.

Al-Qaeda has re-established its "nerve centre" in the lawless tribal areas of western Pakistan. The country is now considered the "centre of gravity" of Al-Qaeda by security services and the "critical battlefield" in the years to come.

Contrary to the British Government's public claim, every source spoken to by this reporter, official or otherwise, in Britain and elsewhere believes the Iraq war has exacerbated the threat to the U.K. specifically and to the West generally. "It is a huge part of the problem," one senior British government counter-terrorism specialist said. However, contrary to exaggerated reports, the number of Westerners who have gone to Iraq to fight is said to be "a handful."

Major co-ordinated attacks on the critical infrastructure of Western nations, such as the Channel Tunnel or passenger jets, are "within the capability and ambition" of militants close to the Al-Qaeda leadership and acting independently and are being actively planned.

All sources consulted believe Osama to be alive. However, his death would "make little operational difference," analysts say, possibly damaging "the organisation" but not "the movement."

All thought the struggle against Islamic terrorism was growing and would last "many decades." Western government analysts now usually split Al-Qaeda into three elements. The first is a "hard core" of well-known leaders such as Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his Egyptian-born associate, in Afghanistan. Security officials believe key decisions and operations take place on a new "middle management" level dedicated to training volunteers who make their way to Pakistan and to co-ordinating both propaganda and bomb attacks around the world.

"Al-Qaeda as an operational, technically capable network, with chains of command leading back to Pakistan from many places, is very much alive and well and continuing to plot," said one security source. "This is very, very surprising given the damage they have suffered but they are a very resilient organisation."

Although the mid-level management frequently suffers losses as key figures are arrested or killed — "the job with the shortest life expectancy in the world must be Al-Qaeda's director of external communications," said one U.K. official — there is no shortage of new faces to fill the ranks. "We are seeing an entirely new generation of militant," said one U.S. source.

The second element is the "network of networks," defined as the series of groups affiliated to the Al-Qaeda hard core in Iraq, elsewhere in the Middle East and, increasingly, in some North African countries. These "franchises" have links to individuals inside Western European countries, particularly the Algerian-based Groupe Salafiste de Predication et le Combat, and are seen as a potentially major threat. Analysts see a "clear convergence, practically and ideologically, among militant groups globally" with greater co-ordination between them.

"There is subcontracting of functions," said one Casablanca-based expert. "Groups in Morocco were tasked with logistics for groups elsewhere, in Spain for example. So, like multinational companies, Al-Qaeda `delocalises' key functions — and constructs cosmopolitan leadership teams."

Ideology

The third element of "Al-Qaeda Mk2," say security officials, is ideology. This has mobilised thousands of young Muslims from a wide variety of backgrounds around the world in the last five years. Analysts now say their radicalisation is occurring far faster, aided by the Internet. "We are talking about a group of guys deciding to do something in West Yorkshire, Paris, Casablanca or Montreal," said one Western intelligence official. "It's still amateur."

Group thinking plays a major role. "In reinforcing each other's view of the world, there is a shift in the perception of what is acceptable and normal," said one senior counter-terrorism official.

It is not the poorest people who are drawn to militancy either. The standard profile is male, mid-twenties, often with a degree, and with parents who have migrated, often from southwest Asia or North Africa to the West. There are also an increasing number of converts. But though, according to one London official, "there is not a single person who has posed a major threat here in recent years who was not radicalised primarily in the U.K.," the "X factor" which changes angry young men into terrorist killers does comes from overseas, British and French government analysts have concluded.

"For a few years it looked like the core of Al-Qaeda had been destroyed as a genuine physical presence by the war of 2001 and all that remained were its ideas, powerful though they were," said one senior Western European security source. "Yet we have seen the core element returning as a major force. They can provide the critical legitimacy and direction that volunteers need."

Analysts point to journeys made by the leader of the July 7, 2006 London bomb plotters, Mohammed Siddique Khan, to Pakistan, where he is believed to have met senior Al-Qaeda figures. In a speech last November the director-general of MI5 (British intelligence), Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, said terrorist plots in Britain "often have links back to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan," adding that "through those links Al-Qaeda gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale."

The fact that videos featuring the logo of Al-Sabah, the Al-Qaeda production house, now emerge within days of an event rather than taking weeks as they once did, has reinforced the idea that the "Al-Qaeda hard core" has been able to rebuild in the havens it has established in the rugged hills of northwest Pakistan.

It is the continually evolving interaction between the three main elements that make it so resilient. The problem, say all the sources, is not going to go away soon. "Some talk about a generational struggle, something taking around 30 years but I think that is too optimistic," said a senior U.K. source.

Ten years ago, when Osama rode his horse across the Afghan hills, few outside specialised circles had even heard of him. Now he is one of the best-known individuals on the planet. And therein may lie, for him at least, the best birthday present of all. —

(Jason Burke is one of the world's leading experts on terrorism. His latest book, On the Road to Kandahar, is published by Allen Lane.)