House of Commons - Foreign Affairs

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Second Report

AL QAEDA AND OTHER TERRORIST GROUPS

63. In November 2001, the US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, stated that finding Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership "is the most important element of this war... Al Qaeda has got to be broken up. Its leadership has got to be found. And Osama bin Laden has got to be found." [67]

64. More than a year after the terrorist attacks on the United States, it seems likely that Osama bin Laden is still alive,[68] and his terrorist network extremely active. In mid-November, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation released a bulletin warning that al Qaeda was likely planning a "spectacular attack," which would—if unchecked—result in "mass casualties, significant damage to the US economy, and maximum psychological trauma."[69]

65. The United States administration has issued repeated warnings that terrorists will strike the United States and its interests abroad again. Tom Ridge, US Director of Homeland Security, said in May that it was not a question of if, but when terrorists would strike; in the same week, Donald Rumsfeld stated that it was "inevitable" that terrorists would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and "will not hesitate to use them."[70] In September and October, the US government reported increased 'noise' among terrorist networks, and issued heightened warnings of possible attacks.

66. In October, terrorists did strike. On 6 October, a French-registered ship, the Limburg, was attacked by a small boat off the coast of Yemen. The attack resembled closely the al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole two years ago. The following day, the Qatar-based al Jazeera television station broadcast an audiotape in which, it was alleged, Osama bin Laden promised to repay the United States "twofold" for any attack on Muslim countries. Then on 8 October, one US Marine was shot dead and another wounded while undertaking military training exercises in Kuwait. The Kuwait attacks were part of a series of shootings at American marines by civilians in pick-up trucks. Kuwaiti officials said that some of the fifteen men detained in relation to the shootings confessed to links with al Qaeda, and said that they had trained in Afghanistan.[71] During the week after these attacks, Al Jazeera received a fax, allegedly signed by Osama bin Laden, which praised the attacks in Kuwait and in the Gulf of Aden as a strike at the "umbilical cord of the Christians."[72]

67. The next attack came within days: on 12 October, a huge bomb destroyed the Sari Club at Kuta Beach, Bali. More than 180 people were killed, most of them Australian tourists. Thirty three Britons died in this attack. It now seems likely that Jemaah Islamiya, an organisation which has known links with al Qaeda, was responsible for the bombing.[73]

68. Another terrorist attack occurred in Russia twelve days later, when Chechen terrorists took over a Moscow theatre, holding seven hundred people hostage. The siege ended after sixty hours, when Russian special forces pumped gas into the theatre to sedate the terrorists. All the terrorists and 119 of the hostages were killed; almost all of these victims died from the effects of the gas. Though the Moscow terrorists had more specific demands than those generally made by al Qaeda—the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya—Russian President Vladimir Putin argued that the attack was part of a wider pattern of global terrorism.[74] This claim has some credibility: a number of regional experts concur that significant links do exist between some of the Chechen fighters and radical Islamist groups from the Arab world.[75]

69. This series of violent attacks continued on 28 October, when a US embassy official was gunned down as he left his home in Amman, Jordan. Islamic terrorists were widely assumed to be responsible for this fatal shooting. Exactly a month later, on 28 November, a further sixteen people[76] were killed when terrorists drove a car packed with explosives into the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya. On the same morning, two missiles were fired at an Israeli airliner as it took off from the airport at Mombasa. President Bush stated on 4 December that al Qaeda was involved in the bombing in Kenya.[77]

An assessment of the state of the al Qaeda network

70. Some kind of al Qaeda involvement seems likely in all the atrocities that took place in October and November. The attacks appear to support the conclusions of the UN Monitoring Group which, in its September 2002 report, described al Qaeda's "operational links with Islamic militant groups in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia," and stated that al Qaeda is "still able to work with, or from within, these groups to recruit new members and to plan and launch future terrorist attacks."[78]

71. We perceive some important differences between these attacks and other al Qaeda operations since the late 1990s, however. In the past, al Qaeda has demonstrated a preference for 'hard' targets which were 'legitimated' by al Qaeda's ideology. United States Embassies, troops and ships located in the Gulf fit this scheme, as does the Pentagon, the centre of US military power, and the World Trade Center, which was perhaps the most prominent symbol of the global dominance of American capitalism. Neither a Bali night club nor a Kenyan hotel fits the pattern, though both might be construed loosely as symbols of Western decadence. The Moscow attack also differs, because—in contrast to al Qaeda operations aimed mainly at the United States' influence in the Middle East and the Gulf region—the Chechen terrorists were motivated by a desire to rid Chechnya of Russian dominance.

72. The Kuwait shootings do conform to the al Qaeda pattern in terms of target, but they inflicted only two casualties. They would have required a lower level of planning and co-ordination than earlier al Qaeda atrocities. This may be an example of al Qaeda associates 'freelancing', or of a degree of decentralisation of decision-making following the disruption of the organisation's operations in Afghanistan.

73. On 28 October, we asked the Foreign Secretary whether al Qaeda was likely to have been responsible for the October attacks. He replied that "We cannot be certain at the moment about the precise nature of the links in the cases of these particular atrocities," though the groups suspected of attacks in Bali and Moscow "are known to have links with al-Qaeda."[79] The Foreign Secretary continued:"The fact that well over 300 people have been killed and many more injured in terrorist outrages in the space of two weeks should alert us to the continuing threat that we all face from this kind of terrorism ... I am afraid to say that the threat is going to stay. Indeed, the combination of failing states, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by rogue states and international terrorism represents the greatest strategic challenge to the civilised world at the moment and I think for at least the next two decades."[80]

74. This is a depressing conclusion. Does it imply that international efforts to eliminate al Qaeda are failing? There has been some progress in tackling the threat from al Qaeda: Francis X. Taylor, former US Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, stated recently that 2,700 al Qaeda suspects had been detained in over 90 countries; "entire al Qaeda cells have been wrapped up in nations such as Singapore and Italy"; and "over 160 countries have joined us in blocking $116 million in terrorist assets."[81] Overall, however, the picture is gloomy. According to the UN Monitoring Group, although there has been an "unprecedented effort to combat terrorism," and "measures adopted by the international community have had a marked impact on al Qaeda, causing it to go to ground, to reposition its assets and resources and to seek new recruits ... al Qaeda is by all accounts 'fit and well' and poised to strike again at its leisure."[82]

75. Numerous commentators have pointed out that al Qaeda is a flexible, amorphous network. It issues no membership cards; its loose affiliates are unlikely to be prevented from committing further atrocities by disruptions to the leadership. The attacks in October and November appear to vindicate the UN Monitoring Group's assessment that, "Despite having lost its physical base and sanctuary in Afghanistan, al Qaeda continues to pose a significant threat to international peace and security."[83]

76. On 12 November, the Prime Minister said that "barely a day goes by without some new piece of intelligence coming via our security services about a threat to UK interests" from terrorists.[84] We conclude that, despite over a year of vigorous international efforts to disrupt the network, al Qaeda and associated organisations continue to pose a grave threat to the United Kingdom and its interests abroad.

67 Condoleezza Rice, interview with Tim Russert on NBC News 'Meet the Press', 18 November 2001. Back

68 In mid-November, a tape recording was released which, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation analysts, sounds convincingly like Osama bin Laden. According to a US official quoted in the Financial Times, the tape shows "that he is playing a role of leadership, but because of physical and logistical challenges he is further removed from the daily running of events." Financial Times, 16 November 2002. Back

69 Cit. Financial Times, 16 November 2002. Back

70 'Gauging the seriousness of vague new terror warnings', Christian Science Monitor, 23 May 2002. Back

71 Economist, 19 October 2002 Back

72 'Bin laden gloats at terror attacks', Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2002, available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk. Back

73 Q 158. Back

74 President Putin "immediately linked the siege with the global war on terror, and charged that the action was planned in a 'foreign terrorist centre.'" See 'Behind the Moscow Theatre Siege, Time, 25 October 2002. Back

75 For example, Thomas de Waal, of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting and author of a book on Chechnya, said: "I don't think it's a matter of Chechen leaders being on the line all the time to members of al Qaeda, I think it's a matter of certain Arabs slipping in and out of Chechnya with money, with propaganda, with weapons." See 'Chechen rebel divisions', BBC, 26 October 2002, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/2364271.stm. Back

76 Three Israelis, ten Kenyans and three suicide bombers were killed in the attacks. Back

77 'Bush believes al Qaeda involved in Kenya attack', Reuters, 4 December 2002. Back

78 Second Report of the Monitoring Group established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1390 (2002), Executive Summary. Back