The Hindu : International : Occupation gives boost to Al-Qaeda claim

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 27, 2004

International

International

Occupation gives boost to Al-Qaeda claim

LONDON, MAY 26. The occupation of Iraq has provided a ``potent global recruitment pretext'' for Al-Qaeda and probably increased worldwide terrorism, a leading thinktank has said.

Despite some losses, the Al-Qaeda has more than 18,000 potential terrorists at large and its ranks are growing, it said. The warnings came from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS), which said Al-Qaeda now existed in more than 60 countries. Its figures were conservative estimates, it said.

Despite the death or capture of half of its 30 senior leaders, as well as some 2,000 rank-and-file supporters, a rump leadership was still intact, the IISS said in its annual strategic survey.

``Christian nations' forcible occupation of Iraq, a historically important land of Islam, has more than offset any calming effect of the U.S. military withdrawal from Saudi Arabia,'' the IISS said. It added: ``With Osama bin Laden's public encouragement, up to 1,000 foreign jihadists have infiltrated Iraq'' — what it calls a minute fraction of the movement's potential strength. The earlier invasion of Afghanistan forced Al-Qaeda to change its tactics, said the IISS. ``While Al-Qaeda lost a recruiting magnet and a training, command and operations base, it was compelled to disperse and become even more decentralised, `virtual', and invisible.''

It delegated more responsibility to ``local talent,'' with recruits becoming ``less religiously absolute in mindset (and) closer to their enemies in background.'' This could make them more open to penetration by western security and intelligence agencies, the thinktank suggested. Any security offensive against Al-Qaeda must be accompanied by political developments, such as the democratisation of Iraq and the resolution of conflict in Israel, it said. In a report uncharacteristically critical of America, the IISS warned that Iraq is facing a ``security vacuum.'' Middle-ranking members of the Saddam regime have been able to deploy their weapons, ``gain ideological purchase and resonance with a new brand of Islamic nationalism, and to mobilise Sunni fears of Shia and Kurdish domination and a growing resentment at foreign occupation. It is unlikely that there has been a "hidden hand" centrally coordinating and funding the insurgency.'' he IISS report added: ``Heavy-handed searches by U.S. troops in hunting for leading members of the old regime have more to do with Fallujah's becoming a centre of violent opposition to U.S. occupation than does Ba'ath loyalism.''

The priority of a new Iraqi government, John Chipman, Director of the IISS, said, must be a new army and police force. ``The danger is that in seeking short cuts it will succumb to the temptation of relying on militias,'' he said.

Guardian Newspaers Limited 2004

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