Aug. 10, 2006 – 7:18 p.m.
The alleged London-based plot to bomb U.S.-bound aircraft reveals what Western intelligence agencies now recognize as their greatest threat and challenge: Western-based Muslims with no known terrorist connections, fired up over the wars in Lebanon and Iraq and determined to contribute to “the cause” of al Qaeda.
Indeed, even as the CIA and FBI have struck significant blows against Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants in recent years, they have encountered even more difficult attacks and threats from budding amateurs who are throwing themselves into action without seeking or waiting for approval, direction or support from what’s left of al Qaeda’s senior leadership.
Ironically, in a stream of taped messages since 2001, Bin Laden has encouraged Muslims the world over to adopt a terrorist version of the anti-war and environmentalist slogan of the 1960s and 1970s: “Think globally, act locally.”
The Madrid train bombings, following in quick succession by the London subway and bus attacks, dispelled any doubt on the part of Western intelligence analysts that they faced a new and possibly more lethal terror threat: Not just so-called lone wolves, but what might be called lone wolf packs.
Both attacks were organized and carried out by South Asian and North African Muslim militants in the U.K. and Spain, respectively, who had no known terrorist connections but had evidently embraced terrorism as a response to U.K. and Spanish support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Although the CIA, FBI and allied counterterror agencies continued to uncover evidence of al Qaeda activity from Indonesia to Western Europe, subsequent plots uncovered in the U.S. more often revealed the involvement of local militants or even “wannabees,” as the Haitians and other individuals recently arrested in Miami and charged with plotting to blow up the Sears Tower were called.
But in recent weeks, intelligence analysts have increasingly braced for an al Qaeda response to Israel’s U.S.-backed campaign to wipe out Iran-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Southern Lebanon.
The reasoning went that Al Qaeda and its followers, who claim to be the true keepers of Sunni Islam, might feel pressed to steal back some of the thunder from Hezbollah and its Iranian godfathers, who embrace the breakaway Shi’a faction of Islam.
As recently as last week, however, a senior FBI official told CQ that the Bureau had detected no unusual activity among terrorist suspects under surveillance in this country.
Like the wars in Bosnia, Chechnya, and since 2003, Iraq, analysts say the news and video of Israel’s Lebanon bombing have worked as virtual recruiting posters to inspire young Muslims in England to violence.
Everyday materials that can be fashioned into bombs that can bring down an airliner or paralyze a rail system for days or weeks are easy to assemble and impossible to monitor, authorities have often said.
Unlike England, however, America’s old post-industrial cities have no counterparts to the vast South Asian communities of Manchester, Birmingham and others where al Qaeda has inspired volunteers. The majority of Arabs in America’s largest Muslim enclave, Detroit, are Christians with little or no attraction for al Qaeda.
While Britain’s domestic counterterror agency MI5 has made effective in-roads into its Muslim communities for several years, according to analysts, it can do little to defend against youth who are merely aggravated about Lebanon one day and upstart terrorists the next.
British authorities have so far released few details about the 24 alleged airline plotters beyond the connections of at least some of them to Pakistan.
But even that sliver can induce shivers in Western police and intelligence officials.
Officially allies in the global war on terrorism, Pakistan’s intelligence and military services are laced with al Qaeda agents and partisans who have protected Osama bin Laden from U.S. special operations teams in the virtually lawless region abutting Afghanistan.
It’s an open secret that Pakistani intelligence also secretly fields Islamic guerrillas fighting to oust India from Kashmir, which both countries claim.
The Pakistani physicist, A.Q. Khan, who gave Iran, North Korea and Libya help in their efforts to build a nuclear bomb, lives under government protection near Islamabad today.
Thus, while some units of the FBI and CIA work closely with their Pakistani counterparts against al Qaeda, others units conduct separate operations against al Qaeda that they conceal from Pakistani authorities. Yet other FBI and CIA units run highly classified operations against the Pakistani services to identify al Qaeda adherents within them.
For similar reasons, U.S. intelligence has sharp restrictions against the employment of foreign nationals, or U.S. citizens with relatives in Muslim countries. At the same time, such restrictions limit its capabilities of infiltrating militant communities or groups here and abroad.
Its limited familiarity with Arabic communities and languages can contribute to such fiascoes as the halt of Air France flights to the U.S. during the 2004 winter holiday, when the name of a passenger who failed to show up for a flight was confused with that of a suspected terrorist.
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.
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