FP: Dr. Gunaratna?
Gunaratna: Mr. Reeve, Mr. Kohlmann, Mr Darling, and Mr. Glazov:
I am delighted to join such eminent group of terrorism scholars in contributing this debate.
The international terrorism landscape has changed dramatically during the past three years. First, Al Qaeda has transformed from a group into a movement; second, the epicentre of international terrorism has shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq; third, terrorist target selection include the Allies and the friends of the United States.
The most profound of these three developments is the morphing of Al Qaeda from a group into a movement. With the dispersal of Al Qaeda members and associate members from Afghanistan to lawless zones in the global south, three dozen Asian, African, Middle Eastern and other local jihad groups are increasingly behaving like Al Qaeda. About 20,000 members of these groups trained, armed, financed and ideologized by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan from the Soviet withdrawal in February 1989 until US intervention in October 2001 are beginning to share Al Qaeda's vision and mission of a global jihad. Compared to the local jihad groups that traditionally attacked local targets, Al Qaeda attacked the "distant enemy" - the United States. Post 9-11, Al Qaeda's constant message to its associated groups was to attack both the "nearby enemy" - local governments as well as the "distant enemy" - the US and its Allies.
The initial evidence of this transformation comes by examining the tactics used and the targets selected by the local groups. For instance, Jemaah Islamiyah, a group aiming to establish an Islamic state in Southeast Asia, never attacked Western targets before 9/11.
However, after 9/11, the group conducted coordinated simultaneous suicide attacks against night clubs in Bali (October 2002), the J. W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta (August 2003) and the Australian Embassy in Indonesia (September 2004) killing over 220 people. Similarly, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group seeking to create an Islamic State, conducted coordinated simultaneous suicide attacks against five targets including a hotel frequented by Israelis, a Jewish cemetery, a Spanish cultural centre, and a Jewish owned Italian restaurant killing 42 in May 2003. Another associated group of Al Qaeda in Pakistan, Laskar-e-Toiba, that usually operates against Indian targets, mounted an operation to target Australian interests in Sydney in 2004. The operation, disrupted, aimed to destroy high profile multiple targets, a classic Al Qaeda modus operandi.
Unlike Al Qaeda, most of its associated groups have a limited geographic reach. Nonetheless, with the help of their politicized and radicalized segments of their migrant and diaspora communities, these local groups are able and willing to plan, prepare and execute attacks in far away theatres. Although the local groups are not as well resourced as Al Qaeda, Bin Laden's financial network is providing them with funds. Despite suffering the loss of Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan, its dispersed trainers, combat tacticians and explosives experts are imparting the specialist knowledge required by the local groups to conduct attacks like Al Qaeda.
The full implications of the transformation of Al Qaeda from a group into a movement have not been adequately assessed either by the security and intelligence community working on terrorism. While the threat posed by Al Qaeda is known and manageable, the multiple threats posed by its associated groups has not been fully studied and assessed. Even within the US intelligence community, the largest counter terrorism intelligence community in the world, there are very few specialists who know the associated groups of Al Qaeda.
FP: Thank you Dr. Gunaratna. Mr. Reeve, your turn. Kindly touch on Dr. Gunaratna’s point about the transformation of Al Qaeda from a group into a movement – and what we can best do about the threat it poses.
Reeve: Some of my initial points have been interpreted a little unfairly by our moderator.
Yes, the American Left has much to answer for. The Clinton administration had plenty of warnings al Qaeda was a growing threat, and failed to protect the country. I think it goes without saying democratization in Iraq will not be helped by psycho terrorists killing women & children.
I am not ‘blaming’ the US for failing to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But I do believe the US, as the only superpower – or hyperpower – on the planet, is the country that could naturally take the lead to help both sides. And the European powers – which have shamelessly washed their hands of a Middle East crisis they largely created – could and should be doing a damn sight more in partnership with the US. My point is that if I was the US government, and was looking to secure my nation’s citizens, I’d have focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than Iraq. I agree with Mr Kohlmann that the Israeli-Palestinian situation will not improve overnight, but ‘swift’ – in my view – would be a resolution within four to eight years.
I sincerely hope we will not try to compare the attacks of 9/11, appalling as they were, with the obscenity of the Holocaust!
The moderator seems very riled by the suggestion America should consider why it’s so hated. Why does this make you so angry? Surely it’s basic analysis to find out what drives one’s enemy: greed, desire for land, hatred etc?? It should have been done in 2001. But is now starting to happen as part of Homeland Security's new National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism.
The point I was trying to make is that a much broader hatred of America has developed globally SINCE 9/11, and this has worrying implications for future American security. Surely the American government should be concerned if there is a general dislike and low-level hatred of the US in African countries, in European states, in Asia? Yes there are multiple reasons for this, many of which cannot be blamed on the US, and yes scapegoating exists and peoples’ hatred can often say more about them than those they hate. But I believe al Qaeda has become a state of mind, and thus low-level hatred of the US around the world continues to encourage that way of thinking.
What the rest of the world thinks should matter to the US. I have personally witnessed high levels of anti-US hatred globally within the last year – in Saudi Arabia (no surprises there), but also in Africa, South-East Asia, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. In Somalia I saw people openly wearing bin Laden t-shirts. In the Caucuses there are anti-US groups emerging in countries which previously idolized America.
Does the moderator not find that worrying? If I was an American, I’d be concerned.
Failing to listen to others would be very dangerous. I am NOT suggesting sitting down for coffee with bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, or other baby-eaters. But how can we defeat something that’s become a state of mind, or a terrorist ideology, if we don’t know what drives it?
I met Osama bin Laden’s former best friend in Saudi Arabia last year. They were as close as brothers when kids and teenagers. They fought together in Afghanistan, and bin Laden ‘gave’ him his sister to marry. He now runs a fish restaurant. So as a reformed militant who understands the al Qaeda/terorrist/Islamist/anti-US mentality, does the moderator think the US should ignore him and his suggestions for defeating terrorism?
There is no carrot that will persuade bin Laden or many of his followers to lay down their guns and start watching Hollywood movies. They need to be hunted down. The US needs to takes a stick to the hardcore terrorists.
But it could also offer a carrot to the rest of the world by being a more benevolent superpower.
Major battles against terrorist groups are not always ‘won’ by annihilating the terrorists. They are often won by gradually turning the host community against the terrorists. Or when a host community becomes sick of the killing and chaos.
To turn the host community against the terrorists the US needs to have a better image internationally. There are hopeful signs. In Central Asia, which is littered with potential terrorist weaponry (biological agents along with caches of conventional explosives), anti-US and anti-Western militant groups have been emerging in the last five years. This has partly been in response to the oppression of the leaders in that region. The Central Asian leaders have been supported by the US, which has turned oppressed people against America, and pushed young men into the arms of terror groups. But more recently US diplomats in the region have increased support for democracy campaigners, and we have just seen regime change in Kyrgyzstan, just north of Afghanistan. I am optimistic militant groups will wither inside democracies.
Apologies for quoting your words back at you FP, but you stated:
“What are we supposed to do when forces in this world wage war on us because they believe that women should wrap their whole bodies up in body bags and that they should not have personal and sexual freedom? What do we do when these forces hate the idea of the separation of church and state, homosexual rights, democracy, minority rights, etc?”
Personally, I don’t have all the answers. But I’m keen to hear your views, and those of the distinguished panel.
Militants might say they are NOT waging war on the US because they believe what you state above, but because they believe the US is preventing them living the lives they want to lead.
So should the US impose Western views on them? Let’s remember there are plenty of people in the US & Europe who hate the idea of the separation of church and state, homosexual rights, minority rights, etc, but their views are heard and we’re still able to co-exist. In the UK, Bishops sit in the Upper House of our Parliament. Our Queen is Head of the Church of England. That’s not a separation of church and state, but we’re friends with the US, and the US hasn't - yet! - tried to change us.
Not everyone in the world wants to exist in US-type, or even Western-type, countries. I traveled extensively in Saudi Arabia last year, and I was surprised at just how many Saudis are basically happy with their Saudi way of government and don’t want immediate democracy. And that’s across the board: men, women, teenagers, Princes, Bedouin, shoppers, pious Mullahs. Women wanted to remain covered. Most liked the way things are. You and I might think sexual freedom and democracy would be good for them. But they don’t all want it yet.
Just going back to the Iraq point briefly. Yes, I do think the manner of the attack was a major mistake. I think the timing was also a mistake.
I do not believe there were strong links between Iraq and al Qaeda. Yes, there were some tentative meetings. Yes, Iraq was funding terrorist groups attacking Iran. But the links between Iraq and al Qaeda pale into insignificance when compared to those between al Qaeda and Pakistan, or al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia, both of which are supposed to be US allies.
Saddam Hussein was a mass-murdering scumbag who has a place in Hell. Iraq is a much better place without him, and we should all rejoice at the elections, which have been a fantastic example to the rest of the Middle East and beyond.
My point is simply that the manner of the attack was faulty, and US military planners did not adequately consider the aftermath of the war. The consequence is a difficult occupation which is fomenting terror and being used as an anti-US rallying call around the Islamic world.
In response to Mr Kohlmann’s comments, the moderator rightly suggested it’s possible the Bush administration felt it had act in Iraq if there was the remotest possibility Saddam could place WMDs into the hands of terrorists.
But why then isn’t the US (and Europe!) looking at other parts of the world where terrorists could pick-up other WMDs?
Senior Pakistani intelligence officials have told me about labs in Karachi. Biological agents can be purchased mail-order in Eastern Europe. As previously mentioned – there are former biological weapons labs in Central Asia which still have stocks and underpaid scientists.
Just a few months ago I visited a former Soviet military base in the southern Caucuses. This is a region with several Islamic militant groups, and plenty of post-Soviet arms dealers looking for a quick buck. On this unguarded base, which doesn’t even have a fence, I found 30,000 abandoned anti-aircraft shells, and scores of working surface-to-land and surface-to-air missile systems each containing more than 200kg of high-explosive. A local scientist had persuaded some of his old academic colleagues to help make these weapons safe. He had appealed for help from the American embassy, but had no response. No response! These missiles, which are capable of bringing-down a small skyscraper, are just sitting in the open waiting to be stolen! All that protects them are snakes in long grass, which the scientist can’t cut because he doesn’t even have money for petrol/gas for a lawnmower.
So I find it very strange the US administration has paid such attention to Iraq, and so little to securing other potential WMDs around the world.
In terms of Dr Gunaratna’s belief that al Qaeda has transformed from an organization to a movement: I think this analysis is excellent, but I would just go slightly further, perhaps, and say it’s a state of mind.
What can we do about it? Well, I’d refer back to my admittedly simplistic carrot and stick comment!
Mr. Darling suggests considering the approaches and methodologies European nations used to defeat both domestic and international terror groups from the 1970s onwards.
The groups which threatened Europe from the ‘70s were markedly different to al Qaeda, and I for one would caution against treating them in the same way.
European nations did some outrageous deals with terrorist groups in the 70s to discourage attacks on their soil. Some of the groups were defeated because they were simply ridiculous and run by murderous brats who loathed their parents’ generation. They had no apocalyptic aims like al Qaeda, did not pose the same level of threat, and members could be bought-off.
I grew-up in London, where we endured a series of IRA terrorist bombings that killed and maimed shoppers, soldiers , children and politicians. As a kid I remember my ordinary London school was repeatedly evacuated because of bomb threats, and successive British governments were targeted. Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet were nearly wiped-out by a major bomb blast at her political party annual conference. But years later it transpired her government had been secretly talking to the IRA the entire time! Even while the IRA was trying to kill Thatcher, and bombing Britain, her government was talking to the terrorists. It was during a period in which the British government basically realized the IRA had a point: the Catholic population of Northern Ireland was suffering discrimination, religious harassment, disproportionate unemployment, etc etc. The IRA used this to garner support. It was only when some of these issues were addressed with job schemes, stronger laws on discrimination, that support for terrorists weakened, and the peace process could really start.
The IRA, of course, is not al Qaeda. Bin Laden’s supporters and ilk are the most dangerous terrorists we’ve ever seen. We cannot reason with bin Laden, but surely we can turn his base level support against him.
FP: Mr. Reeve, you speak about resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the assumption that the U.S. is supposed to do something about it. The problem is that all the U.S. can do is to try to get the Palestinian leadership to stop supporting and co-operating with terrorists. Arafat refused to do that the whole time. Jew-killing was his priority. Will Abbas be different? If you really support peace in the Middle East, then you would be focused on the new Palestinian leadership and whether or not it will be serious, unlike Arafat, in destroying the terrorist network and agreeing to peaceful co-existence. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what the U.S. or anyone else does in terms of planning peace talks etc.
I compared the attacks of 9/11 with the Holocaust in the context of hatred being motivated by scapegoating. What I mean is that after 9/11, we are not supposed to be sitting around worrying about what we did wrong. The perpetrators that committed that crime are evil and they perpetrated their crime because they are committed to mass death and suicide. We are dealing with nihilists and a death-cult ideology. We are not supposed to be agonizing over what we can do to make these people less angry at us. Like we did with Nazism and Communism, we have to crush Islamism.
If we want to know what causes Islamists’ hatred of us, we need to listen to what bin Laden and Zarqawi say in their pronouncements.
Mr. Reeve, you ask if I am not concerned that there is a growing anti-Americanism. Yes I am concerned. There is an underlying assumption that being concerned about this is somehow connected to Americans having to do something about it. Would you also say to a Jewish person: “Anti-Semitism is skyrocketing around the world, does this not concern you?” Would you ask this on the assumption that the Jewish person is supposed to start changing something he is doing? The sociologist Paul Hollander has clearly demonstrated how anti-Americanism is a form of racism and bigotry, a species and cousin of misogyny, anti-Semitism and other forms of irrational hate.
You state, “But how can we defeat something that’s become a state of mind, or a terrorist ideology, if we don’t know what drives it?”
We know what drives it, just as we know what drove Nazism and Communism, and what drives a serial killer and a serial rapist and a serial child molester. That is why we must chase down every and any entity that wants to perpetrate another 9/11 and kill it.
Mr. Reeve, you want the U.S. to be “a more benevolent superpower”? Is this the comedy portion of the symposium? Surely you are aware that the more benevolent the U.S. has been in many realms the more it has been hated.
If you do not know the difference between the separation of Church and State in England and what Sharia is I don’t know what to tell you. And kindly do not speak for people who live under tyranny, suggesting that maybe they like it that way. This is the same shameless excuse we heard from the Left about people under communism during the Cold War.
The bottom line is that individuals should be given a choice regarding what they want to do. In many parts of the Islamic-Arab world today, people cannot make free choices without facing the possibility of death and torture. Please do not equivocate on how these people might not want to be free or how a woman might want to wear the veil. The bottom line is that if a woman chooses to take the veil off in a place like Iran or Saudi Arabia she will have acid thrown in her face, be killed, or tortured, imprisoned, gang-raped, etc. That is the point. And that is what we need to be talking about.
Your travels to Saudi Arabia and your retelling of what you heard there is startling. Do you know about the fellow travelers of the 20th century? If not, take a look at Paul Hollander’s Political Pilgrims. Do you really think people in Saudi Arabia, a woman for example, can say what she really thinks? You really think a woman can tell you: “Yeh Simon, I hate the despots here, I don’t want to wear this crap!” and then rip her whole veil off? What if she wanted to do that? What would happen to her? That is what we should be focused on. But individuals such as yourselves never think about things in this way because then you would have to have moral clarity and have to say: “This is a despotic and evil regime and the West is better and has the moral high-ground. People in Saudi Arabia should be allowed to make choices without fear of punishment. Our society’s freedoms and values are superior.”
Mr. Reeve, do you understand what will happen to the individual that tells you something that is not allowed to be said in Saudi Arabia and it is found out? You know about the Religious Police there right? Do you think it might have something to do with the way people frame their answers to you about their satisfaction with the society? It is simply absurd for you to repeat something positive someone said to you, when it is a fact that there is no freedom of speech and that certain actions and statements, especially about Islam, can get people killed.
In any case, Mr. Kohlmann, go ahead.
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