Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
TUESDAY 3 JUNE 2003
PROFESSOR PAUL
WILKINSON AND
MS JANE
CORBIN
Q320 Sir John Stanley: Would you
wish to see a greater special forces effort outside Kabul than
is taking place now?
Professor Wilkinson: Yes, I would.
I think that that was really what was needed earlier and it is
a great pity that there were not enough expert troops on the ground
at the time of Tora Bora to ensure that the escape holes, as it
were, were blocked. I think that is now widely accepted by strategists
in the States looking at the record of the troops in the war,
and I think that given that that was one of the failures, that
we did not stop bin Laden escaping, we really need to look at
the situation in Afghanistan again and put resources into stabilising
that very fragile country because I think Jane's scenario of it
falling apart and becoming really a safe haven for al-Qaeda again
is all too credible.
Ms Corbin: May I just add one
thing. I think that the importance of bin Laden himself as a figurehead
and as a charismatic leader obviously should not be underestimated.
It was said at the beginning of the war on terror that this man
was wanted dead or alive. I think the Americans then managed to
shift the emphasis away from bin Laden as the failure to capture
him became more of an issue for the perceived success of the war
on terror, but until he is apprehended or until he is shown to
be dead, he will remain a charismatic figurehead and he will presumably
continue to put out his messages, his tapes, his writings and
he will act as a rallying point. It is not that he is necessary
to co-ordinate the network or to give directions for each and
every attack, but his importance is and always has been as the
figurehead at the top of it, the man who inspires the acts. His
deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is believed to be much more important
in terms of the command and control, but as for bin Laden, I think
his capture is absolutely essential for the war on terror to be
judged a success and to have a real impact on the continued ability
of al-Qaeda to recruit.
Q321 Mr Olner: Having said that,
do you think then that there is some firm direction from the top
of al-Qaeda on the recent terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia and
Morocco?
Ms Corbin: I think that they have
their channels of communication. They are known to have stopped
using satellite phones and even perhaps Internet communications
because of the ability to be tracked, but they use couriers, they
use a personal message system and I believe that that is still
up and running to some extent, though I think it has been severely
disrupted by the American success in seizing various individuals.
My understanding is that an individual called Saif al-Adel, an
Egyptian from Ayman al-Zawahiri's branch of al-Qaeda—which
you will appreciate is an umbrella group which includes the Islamic
Jihad within it, this individual is the person who has been a
key figure in the Saudi attacks. He is known to be close obviously
to Ayman al-Zawahiri, so it would not be impossible for there
to have been some direction from bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
out to Saif al-Adel and then to the bombers in Saudi. I think
there is a degree of co-ordination, but I do not think it should
be overestimated because the strength of al-Qaeda again has always
been in enabling their cells to have a great deal of autonomy
in the way that they act, their timing and so on.
Q322 Mr Olner: Do you not think it
is a bit of an enigma really about the Saudis? The US Deputy Secretary
of State, Paul Wolfowitz, stated that, "The Saudis are pursuing
terrorists in their own country now with a vigour that we have
not seen before", but surely the economic, political and
social conditions in Arabia remain especially conducive to attracting
terrorism and cells of terrorism?
Professor Wilkinson: I agree with
you. I think that the Saudi situation is one where al-Qaeda has
been able to recruit and plant a cell structure and that the Saudi
authorities appear to have underestimated this danger is very
clear from the security failures, the escape of the 19, I think,
that were suspects that they realised were involved in a conspiracy,
and unfortunately they did not capture them before the Riyadh
bombing could be carried out. I think we need to distinguish,
however, between laxity, incompetence, a kind of lack of counter-terrorism
strategy and technical skill, and a kind of deliberate ambivalence
or even a sympathy on the part of the regime for al-Qaeda. I think
that the Saudi Royal Family know full well that al-Qaeda is, if
you like, a sword pointed at them and that they are very much
in danger from this kind of extremism, but they were hoping to
keep the problem hidden and did not want it publicised outside
the country or indeed even within Saudi Arabia, hence the idea
of blaming this on criminal activity, you know, bombs in vehicles
and so on blamed on to non-political crime, but given the fact
that al-Qaeda was probably involved—
Q323 Mr Olner: But given that Saudi
is the paymaster for most of these organisations, can you really
see the Saudi Government changing its attitude now so as to maybe
bankroll some of these extreme Muslim organisations?
Ms Corbin: I think you have to
draw a distinction between charitable funds which are administered
by the authorities or the Royal Family and private donations made
through mosques and there have been accusations that both of those
are funding sources for al-Qaeda. Certainly the lawyers of the
victims' families from the 9/11 attacks are very vigorously pursuing
these various leads. The Saudis, I think, were undoubtedly shocked
by what happened earlier in May in Riyadh. As to the thought that
simultaneous attacks could occur in what is effectively a security
police state, the authorities have said openly that large quantities
of arms and explosives were smuggled into Saudi and this seems
to have shocked them almost more than anything else, that their
own mechanisms for dealing with this did not come into operation
this time and I think the sheer numbers of 19 or more that were
involved will have sent a shock wave through the authorities.
I think it is too early because obviously they are saying now
that they are going to get tough and they are going to get real
with this problem, so we shall see, I think, in the weeks to come,
but I think it has been a salutary lesson to them.
Q324 Mr Chidgey: I would like to
return, if I may, to the issue about the effects on al-Qaeda of
the war in Iraq which you touched on a bit earlier. We took evidence
from the Foreign Secretary a little while ago[7]
and we pressed him on this point at the time. He replied that
the effects were completely benign and he could not understand
why there would have been an issue about the war in Iraq having
any implication on the war against terrorism and al-Qaeda. We
had previously taken note of the comments from the Egyptian President,
Mr Mubarak, and others who warned that an attack on Iraq, an invasion
of Iraq would have very serious consequences with literally a
rising on the Arab streets and would only boost al-Qaeda. There
has not been a lot of evidence of that, has there?
Professor Wilkinson: Well, I think
you have to recognise that it takes time for al-Qaeda to organise
major attacks of a spectacular nature and often months are involved
in terms of preparing the personnel, getting the weapons in place
and so on, so we may not have seen the outcome of plans that were
laid during these very recent months of the war, so I think it
is a bit early to judge whether there has been an increase in
planning of really major atrocities. However, Riyadh and Casablanca
were, from the point of view of the Saudis and the Moroccans,
major disasters because of course they had not experienced this
in their major cities from al-Qaeda's affiliates or from al-Qaeda.
Q325 Mr Chidgey: Are you suggesting,
Professor, that in some way, perhaps in every way, those particular
atrocities were a retaliation by al-Qaeda to the war against Iraq?
Professor Wilkinson: I think that
they were motivated by a number of things, one of which was to
show that they were very much in business and capable of launching
no-warning suicide co-ordinated attacks, which is indeed what
they did in both Casablanca and in Riyadh. I think that they also
wanted to send a message to the governments of Morocco and Saudi
Arabia that dealing with the "Great Satan" and the other
"little Satans" in the West was something they were
going to be paying a price for, that they wanted to show that
they could undermine these governments which they regard as betraying
the true Islam as defined by al-Qaeda's leadership, so I think
there were a number of messages that they were conveying. Clearly
during the period of the Iraq war, they had been busy preparing
cells and instructing cells to plan actions. They had also still
been receiving money and the intelligence community in Europe
(I do not know quite whether the Americans would agree with this,
I think they are somewhat puzzled still about the precise effects
of the war on al-Qaeda) but if you speak to German, French, Italian
and Spanish intelligence experts, they are of the view that recruitment
and donations to al-Qaeda went up because the invasion of Iraq
was seen as such a major propaganda boost for al-Qaeda that this
was seen as what al-Qaeda had been warning about: "Here is
a Muslim country being invaded by these wicked Western powers
and we must leap to its defence". We have to remember that
bin Laden, in an audiotape message, was determined to try and
get some value out of this by calling upon Muslims to mobilise
and to attack American and allied targets wherever.
Ms Corbin: I would agree with
that and I think there were two moments at which bin Laden himself
sent a message on the Iraq situation. One was in November last
year and again in February. On both occasions he actually drew
attention in his tapes to the coming war with Iraq and called
on people to follow his lead and to attack the British, the Americans
and he named a number of other countries as well. That was a deliberate
call from him. From my contacts and discussions with various people,
I know that there was debate within al-Qaeda about how they could
use the coming war in Iraq to their own ends to boost the cause,
if you like, and I think that this in turn was recognised by intelligence
services around the world. There was a great deal of disquiet
about exactly what al-Qaeda would do perhaps as the war with Iraq
broke and that perhaps there would be big terror attacks to coincide
with military action in Iraq. This did not happen and of course
the coalition advanced with great haste and speed up to Baghdad
and I think at this point that there was perhaps a little bit
of complacency that we had not seen the feared attacks that bin
Laden had called for, hence President Bush's remarks. I think
for al-Qaeda it was very important that they were seen to follow
up quickly with attacks which we then saw in Riyadh and Casablanca,
so I think that they in effect will have viewed this as having
fulfilled the promise that they made or the appeal that they put
out to followers to come and follow them because of the action
in Iraq. I do think that the action in Iraq has led to more recruitment
and it has led to more prestige, for al-Qaeda, in the eyes of
those in the Middle East who will have watched the effects of
the bombing and will have obviously watched al-Jazeera and other
television stations and have seen the work of al-Qaeda and perhaps
in the eyes of some it will be seen that bin Laden stepped in
where other Arab leaders feared to tread and has done something
to defend, if you like, the honour of the Iraqi people when others
in the Middle Eastern region did nothing. This is always very
important to al-Qaeda, this is the other string to their bow,
that their enemy is always the West, the so-called "infidels"
and the Jews, but their other enemies are the Arab regimes of
which they disapprove and they seek to make capital in proving
to would-be followers that they are the ones who really stand
on their honour and dignity and not some of these Arab leaders.
Q326 Mr Chidgey: Can I just press
a little further on the recruitment issue. You have both made
it very clear, it is very interesting, the effect it has had on
recruitment in the Arab world, but one of the issues we are interested
in is what impact it has had on recruitment in the Muslim world
outside the Arab region, particularly of course in Europe. If
I can take one example where we have seen recently two UK citizens
engaged in suicide bombing in Israel, though of course we have
no idea if there is a linkage with al-Qaeda, it is interesting
that that should have occurred some weeks after the war, so my
question really is not so much the recruitment in the Arab world
which may have been sparked or increased by the war against Iraq,
but what impact it has had against the Muslim communities worldwide
and whether there has been generated an increased involvement
and recruitment to al-Qaeda from those communities which we would
not normally see as the front-line target for recruitment to al-Qaeda.
Ms Corbin: I think the answer
is that we do not know yet. We find out about these individuals
sadly when these events become public knowledge. For example,
the so-called "shoe bomber", Richard Reid, who was a
British citizen, was a vulnerable and disturbed person clearly
and was targeted by al-Qaeda and these are the kinds of people
that they go for. Their recruitment methods have been often through
small religious groups, extremist groups operating in mosques,
sometimes with the knowledge of authorities, sometimes without
the knowledge of authorities in those religious establishments.
Q327 Mr Chidgey: In Western communities
as well?
Ms Corbin: Yes. It is important
to say that we should not give the impression that all mosques,
all religious groups in these communities harbour recruiters for
al-Qaeda. It is very small and very specific. They target vulnerable
people and of course they use the instruments at their disposal
and they use anger, they use perceived grievances and the more
there are of those and the more recent they are, perhaps the more
likely they are to find recruits given that they target vulnerable
people to begin with, so there is every possibility that they
will be able to further their recruitment because of events in
Iraq, events in Gaza and the West Bank, but I do not think we
can put a figure on it. I do not think we can say that they are
twice as likely to gain recruits or to have a substantial number
more, but we just know that that is the way they recruit, that
is what they do and we know that they have a presence in many
countries, including Britain, either directly as al-Qaeda or through
affiliated extremist groups, GIA[8],
GSPC[9],
and others like that.
Professor Wilkinson: I think we
have to remember that al-Qaeda is putting out a very universalistic
message to Muslims. I am sure this Committee would not fall into
this trap, but I think some observers have fallen into the trap
of assuming that their appeal is to people who live in a number
of Arab states or Muslim states which have provided a very large
number of members, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen. I think
that is a mistaken notion of al-Qaeda. It is aiming to try and
mobilise Muslims all over the world. It sees itself as addressing
both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, which is quite interesting because
most radical movements within Islam in the past have really been
either Shiite or Sunni and here you have a movement that is setting
up the idea of a global and Islamist caliphate and it seems very
grandiose. It seems a long way away with us looking at the international
situation as it is, but they really believe that that is what
they are working towards and that Allah is on their side and that
ultimately it will happen.
Ms Corbin: It is very important
to al-Qaeda, because they are in the business of terror, in recruiting
people who are able to escape the security net thrown round increasingly
as we become aware of their methods. They deliberately chose Richard
Reed because he had a British passport. A computer was later discovered
in Afghanistan which was effectively a record of a particular
operative who seemed to be controlling Richard Reed's itinerary
and in it was stated quite clearly that brothers who have European
passports can go to Israel and can do things which others cannot.
I think that shows that al-Qaeda is deliberately targeting people
who hold passports which enables them to travel more freely and
not to fall under suspicion. I think that is another reason why
we need to be concerned about the attractiveness of citizens in
Europe or America or anywhere else in the west to al-Qaeda, because
they are perceived as being able to carry out terror attacks for
them.
Q328 Mr Pope: I wonder if you could
say a word about the links between al-Qaeda and other terrorist
groups. It seems to me that there are a number of terror groups
operating that have a number of things in common, for example
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad. Some of the Kashmiri terrorist
groups all have in common that they are fundamentalist, fiercely
anti-Jewish, anti-Western and have a cell-based structure. Is
there more than a commonality of interest there? Are there actually
links between them or are they more like Western-based extremist
groups which tend to hate each other more than they hate their
usual target? I am wondering about the level of co-operation between
them.
Ms Corbin: I think bin Laden sensed
very early on that the true power of his organisation lay in it
becoming an umbrella organisation, he called it the base and he
then called it the Islamic front for Jihad against crusaders and
Jews. So I think he always conceived of it as an over-arching
organisation and he worked very hard to bring other groups within
that umbrella. Several years ago he sent his deputy to the Far
East to scout out local groups who might be brought into some
sort of affiliation and as a result the links with Jemaah Islamiyah
(JI) have always been very strong historically along with other
groups in the Philippines. With certain other extremist groups,
they have not been brought under the umbrella of the base but
tactical alliances have been formed. I can think of groups in
Algeria who were already felt to have a strong presence in Europe.
Q329 Chairman: The GIA?
Ms Corbin: Yes, and the Salafist
groups. There was a discussion at senior levels which went something
like this: al-Qaeda will do the things that it can do and in the
areas where you are strong you will continue to do the things
that you are well placed to go, but we recognise that we have
a common goal and we have a common enemy. I think al-Qaeda is
quite flexible. Sometimes it has an affiliate and sometimes it
teams up and shares operatives and sometimes in one particular
country or place those two things may be going on in parallel
which of course makes it even more difficult to penetrate and
to defeat. On the Palestinian side, I personally have not seen
evidence of direct links between al-Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic Jihad
in the Palestinian territories, but the Israeli authorities believe
there are.
Q330 Mr Pope: The point that you
are making is that they are co-operative rather than sectarian.
Professor Wilkinson: Yes, I think
that would be accurate. I do agree with Jane that by and large
the Palestinian groups have kept themselves rather distant from
al-Qaeda. I think they recognised that they have a struggle which
is fully occupying them, which needs all their efforts to be concentrated
against Israeli targets and they have not wanted to get involved
in this wider programme of al-Qaeda's. I think Arafat's rather
angry assertion that al-Qaeda had been trying to hijack the Palestinian
cause was interesting because it suggests that he was irritated
at possible interference by al-Qaeda with the Palestinian movement
in general. As far as the use of other groups is concerned, I
think Jane is right to describe the structure or penetration of
groups like GIA and the Salafist group for preaching in combat,
which is the one that has so many European supporters. I think
that they have used those organisations to a great extent as they
have also created or helped to create organisations in other areas
like Jemaah Islamiyah in south-east Asia. So they have groups
that they have created by their own efforts with supporters in
the region which they help with money and expertise. They have
organisations which have been going for some time like the Algerian
and Egyptian groups which have their own programme within their
own countries but where they have supporters who are fanatically
in sympathy with the al-Qaeda cause and they have used those.
Then they have people that they can move from one area to another
with particular expertise and they are still able to do that.
I think we ought to stress that although they are obviously devolving
a great deal of work to the cells at local and regional level
and giving them a great deal of initiative, they are still capable
of deploying resources from the centre of the al-Qaeda organisation
and they can still command financial resources despite all the
very energetic efforts of the finance ministers' task force to
block finances. I think it is $121.5 million that it is claimed
is now blocked in Western banks, but of course that does not account
for the money that they can send through the informal system of
transfers in the Middle Eastern banking system which is still,
unfortunately, a big loophole and it does not stop them from using
organised crime which they are using extensively, things like
credit card fraud, using front companies and then establishing
the smuggling of various commodities as another lucrative means
of bringing in money. So with all these other sources, bearing
in mind that a terrorist organisation does not need as much money
as a state, it does not have the same costs as a state, al-Qaeda
is still far and away the best resourced terrorist organisation
in the world today.
Ms Corbin: There is one other
group which is the Pakistani extremist organisations and I think
that is particularly important for consideration in the British
context because of communities here and sympathies with, for example,
the issue of Kashmir, which is another one that bin Laden has
sought to bring under the umbrella of grievances. In 1998 he first
formed officially an alliance with Pakistani groups who were particularly
unhappy about the issue of Kashmir and that has continued now
as those groups have splintered. They have very close ties because
of the Pakistan/Afghanistan situation and the geographical closeness.
I think there is a particularly close link between al-Qaeda and
some of these Pakistani groups and we have seen that obviously
in the bombing of a church in Islamabad last year, the killing
of Daniel Pearl and a number of other incidents there and I think
that has very profound implications for sympathies in certain
sectors of the community here and perhaps recruitment as well.
We know that the people who have ended up as al-Qaeda foot soldiers
have talked about Kashmir as being the issue that draws them to
bin Laden, it is another issue he speaks about frequently in his
speeches.
Q331 Mr Pope: I want to touch on
the leadership of al-Qaeda. It was on 5 May that President Bush
made the speech that the Chairman quoted at the beginning in Arkansas.
He said, "Right now, about half of all the top al-Qaeda operatives
are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem
anymore". Clearly there have been a number of events since
then which would bring that into question. I just wondered how
damaged an organisation you think al-Qaeda is by the fact that
half of its top operatives are dead or in jail, if indeed they
are?
Ms Corbin: Half are dead and in
jail and half are not, it is the half full/half empty syndrome.
They show an ability to regenerate and to pass on responsibilities
and for new groups and new individuals to rise through the ranks.
It was not for some months until after the 9/11 attacks that the
intelligence communities really understood who was the key figure
in planning those, an individual called Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
and although he had cropped up time and again and his name was
known and he had been associated with terrorism in the past, there
was a failure to grasp how central he was to that particular plan.
So I think there is a danger of seeing that repeated, so Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed has now been seized and others, but are there
other Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds coming up through the ranks who
have responsibilities, who are sitting quietly somewhere working
out a plan? The answer has to be yes. So although the organisation
has been damaged, it does seem to have the ability to find new
fanatical groupings and individuals, not least of all the fact
they have now admitted to having a department of martyrs, which
I think gives you an indication of the strength of the recruitment
drive that they have, of people willing to give up their lives
for the organisation, which is another key factor.
Professor Wilkinson: I think I
would agree with all of that and add that we should not underestimate
the sheer scale of this movement. I think movement is probably
a better term to describe it than organisation because of its
loose structure and affiliated organisations. As a movement it
has more actual trained militants with expertise that can be used
in terrorist operations than any previous international terrorist
movement that we have known. We are talking about 17,000, that
is probably a conservative estimate, who have been through various
training processes, who have had access to the expertise and who
can be mobilised in, the Americans are saying, 90 countries, but
we only have limited resources in my research centre and we come
up with between 50 and 60 countries. That is a terrifically high
number compared to the geographical dispersal of any previous
international terrorist organisation.
Ms Corbin: They also have used
only low tech methods to date, so far they have not succeeded
in the dirty bomb scenario that has been feared or the chemical
or biological weapon, they have used car bombs, explosives, firearms,
all fairly low tech solutions which in terms of training and passing
on knowledge, yes, they still have to get those things, but in
terms of passing on training and knowledge they are not that difficult.
So given the thousands that have passed through the camps, even
apprehending 5,000 or 10,000, it still leaves a substantial pool
there for them to draw on.
Q332 Mr Pope: You touched earlier
on the symbolic importance of Osama bin Laden to al-Qaeda, saying
that it is not really the strategist who is going to decide what
they are going to do next but it is of huge symbolic importance
to them. There seems to be a consensus that Osama bin Laden is
still alive and hiding somewhere. It seems to me safe to assume
that he is top of the American Government's most wanted list and
he is probably top of the British Government's most wanted list.
What do you think the political ramifications for support for
al-Qaeda would be either if Osama bin Laden is killed by the Americans
or captured by them? It crossed my mind that the worst of all
worlds would be for him to be captured alive because I could then
foresee a wave of hijackings of planes and so on demanding his
release.
Ms Corbin: I do not think he would
allow himself to be taken alive, it does not fit with what we
know about him or the organisation, but of course that does not
necessarily mean that when the moment came and with the element
of surprise they would not be able to capture him alive. I think
it would create a problem first of all as you say because of the
reprisals that would ensue and also the whole issue of the trial.
How would you manage such a trial? Would it be a military tribunal
or what? I think it would be a big problem. I do not think he
would be taken alive. I think it is very important that he is
captured or killed, but then of course you have the problem also,
if he is killed—and we have seen this recently with Saddam
Hussein and the various so-called decapitation efforts—how
do you prove it? Do you produce a body? Can you produce a body?
How do you convince people in the Middle East that he is dead?
It is going to be a very difficult task..
Professor Wilkinson: I think it
would be unwise to assume that if he is captured or killed that
would mean the end of the al-Qaeda organisation, although some
have concluded that. I think that is really not to understand
fully the nature of the movement that has been established. They
have a succession plan which would cover the deputy leader Aiman
al Zawahri as well and the other key figures. Aiman al Zawahri's
role is not to be underestimated, he is not only a strategist
and a person with a lot of experience of the terrorism used in
Egypt in the struggle there, he is also an ideological mentor,
in some ways the ideologue of the organisation and I think his
role is even more important today when we see him taking a very
active part in propaganda efforts to make sure that the message
is reaching sympathisers and supporters and so on. However, I
think it would be a great blow to al-Qaeda, for the reasons Jane
outlined earlier, if bin Laden was to be captured or killed. Although
it would be an extremely difficult challenge, I would hope that
he would be brought before an international tribunal because he
has committed the most terrible crimes against human rights on
a very big scale. It would be very important for the whole world,
including of course the Muslim world, to see the case against
him argued point by point. I think the tribunals that have been
busily trying the war criminals from the Yugoslav situation have
shown that they can cope with these very, very difficult situations
and really produce extremely professional work at international
tribunals. To my mind that would be the ideal way to deal with
him if he is captured. I think if he could manage to avoid it
he would try to be a martyr in the course of the confrontation
with the police or the army.
Q333 Mr Hamilton: Professor Wilkinson,
earlier you alluded to the fact that al-Qaeda does not need as
much money as a state in order to carry out its terrorist acts
but nonetheless it does need finance and one of the strategies
that both British and UK governments and other governments indeed
adopted after the 11 September 2001 was to try and kerb the flow
of terrorist finance. How successful do you think governments
have been in co-operating with each other to try and stem that
flow of finance to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups?
Ms Corbin: I think it was very
important that governments took the action that they did and for
it to have been an international push. It had the effect in the
immediate aftermath of 9/11 of making a number of countries in
the region examine the transparency of their banking rules and
regulations. I know this happened in the Emirates where I was
shortly after 9/11, where it was explained to me by the authorities
and by the Governor of the Central Bank that they will take every
possible step to lay open what happened and, as you know, a substantial
amount of the funding for the 9/11 operation did pass through
Dubai. I think it was important to take those steps and to be
very clear that everybody had to lay their records open. I think
in the months following there was a great deal of money that was
stopped and frozen, but I have never believed that the international
banking system is the place where al-Qaeda has trusted large amounts
of its funds. Certainly in the contacts that I have had and the
people that I have interviewed things like gold have been very
important, currency trading, the informal methods of barter, private
donations, cash is very, very important to al-Qaeda and that is
what they use. They also do not require, as Paul said earlier,
large amounts of money. The whole 9/11 operation cost only a few
hundred thousand dollars to mount and it ran for two or three
years. The real value added that al-Qaeda has is not its funding
but the fanaticism of its followers, that is worth more than money
can buy. It is important to take steps, but I personally do not
believe that what we have seen in terms of the stopping of money
flows has made a substantial difference to al-Qaeda. They still
seem to be able to buy and smuggle explosives and surface-to-air
missiles with deadly effect.
Professor Wilkinson: I agree that
they are still able to use these informal methods of getting money,
but I think that the banking system has made a very useful contribution
and I think it would be a very serious setback if countries were
to retreat from this set of measures that they have taken. If
they are going to work then the names of companies and individuals
provided in the UN Security Council list must be of a kind where
evidence can be conveyed by one government to another to back
up the case for putting them in the list otherwise—and we
have seen it happen in Canada and Sweden and various other countries—inevitably
individuals who are named in the list but believe they have been
unjustly named will challenge this in the courts of the country
concerned and if there is no evidence available to the national
legal system then nothing can be done to uphold this structure.
I think we need to put greater emphasis on exchanging financial
intelligence. There is already a great deal of stress on political
intelligence about the movements of terrorists and their linkages
and so on. In my view much more should be done on the financial
intelligence side because of course to reduce the amount of funding
that they can get is a major contribution, there is no doubt.
Q334 Mr Hamilton: The Islamic banking
system relies very heavily on trust rather than on written records
and obviously not on the payment of interest. Even if we use the
international banking system to try and stem the flow of funds,
if you are relying on fanatics to raise money, those fanatics
will raise that money and raise it in cash. If you do not have
huge amounts, I think you have said a few 100,000 over a period
of two years to mount the attacks on the United States on 11 September,
then how can we ever hope to defeat al-Qaeda through stemming
their finances?
Ms Corbin: I think there is another
method that al-Qaeda use which is simply a criminal method and
it is very important for law enforcement to be across this and
they are increasingly, which is that they have a huge racket going
on with credit card fraud, they clone them and use them and this
has happened in Spain and in other countries in Europe and in
Canada to raise cash for operations. So that is a question of
policing, to find these people and to find these illicit credit
card fraud rings. That is another thing that can be done and I
would say that that is the level at which they are operating together
with their cash and small amounts of transfer and their donations,
it is the credit card fraud as much as the big international banking
transfers.
Professor Wilkinson: And it is
the charities. We have to try and get the countries of the Middle
East as well as the countries in the European Union who have already
been thinking about this problem to register charities and scrutinise
their finances more closely because undoubtedly al-Qaeda has also
used that to siphon money off charitable organisations sometimes
without the knowledge of the charity's trustees. So tightening
up in all these respects is not going to end the financial resourcing
of al-Qaeda, as Jane has said, but it is going to put a greater
squeeze on them and I think we have to accept that it has to be
a multi-agency, a multi-pronged effort which ultimately will undermine
and gravely weaken, we hope ultimately unravel, the al-Qaeda network.
We are not going to do it by financial measures alone and, as
Jane said earlier, we are not going to do it by military measures
alone. We need high quality intelligence, good, well chosen criminal
justice measures, law enforcement co-operation. We need to win
the hearts and minds of the Muslim world to show that we are not
conducting a war against Islam but a war against terrorism and
that message has been got across by our own Prime Minister and
by other leaders in the Western world, but I do not think it has
got across internationally with enough force and we do need to
get that message really strongly across particularly in the wake
of the war in Iraq where a great deal of propaganda working in
the opposite direction has set us back in the hearts and minds
campaign in my view.
Mr Hamilton: I wanted your views on the
way in which established norms of civil rights are being contravened
in the fight against terrorism and I wanted you to answer the
question as to how justified things like Guantanamo Bay are because
clearly the argument that is used is that we have got to use extreme
tactics to defeat the extremism that terrorism has launched all
over the world and therefore it is justifiable to kerb the norms
of civil rights by keeping people in detention without trial in
places like Guantanamo Bay. How far do you think those means are
justified in the war against terrorism?
Q335 Chairman: Professor Wilkinson,
you have published extensively on this issue so perhaps you should
answer first.
Professor Wilkinson: As the Chairman
has kindly said, I have spent a great deal of my working life
trying to find ways of dealing with this problem internationally
which do not involve the suppression of human rights, the suppression
of democracy and the rule of law. In my view, if we adopt policies
that are going to undermine those values that we so greatly treasure
in democratic countries then we are actually assisting the terrorists.
That is what they would like to achieve. Therefore, we should
be very careful about the legislation that we introduce to deal
with this problem. Of course there is a need for special measures
such as finance measures. If you have a sophisticated organisation
that is using the financial system there are laws in the Terrorism
2000 Act which I think were absolutely necessary because of the
increasing sophistication of terrorism, so there is a contribution
to be made from terrorism legislation, but I think what was important
about the Terrorism 2,000 Act in Britain was that we did not favour
going for the suspension of habeas corpus or other ways
of damaging fundamental civil liberties and I think it is possible
to act firmly and with effectiveness against terrorism without
suspending fundamental civil rights. I think it is very dangerous
if we do and I am on record as criticising the Guantanamo Bay
effort. I think it is a great shame in a country where the law
system has been widely admired, people admire the independence
of the American criminal justice system all over the world, if
it is not being used. These people are left in a kind of limbo
where they are not being charged with anything and they cannot
defend themselves. It appears some of them are juveniles. There
may be people there who are guilty of the most awful terrorist
offences. If they are, why on earth can they not be brought to
trial in the United States where people like Ramzi Yousef, one
of the master terrorist of the modern age, was put on trial and
very effective evidence brought forward and the criminal justice
system showed that it could deal with a complex case like his
and with those who were involved in the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam
Embassy bombings. Four of them were put on trial in New York very
successfully in the sense that the judicial process was seen to
be working properly and justly. Justice was seen to be done and
I think that is a far better way than suspending human rights.
Q336 Sir John Stanley: Can I just
ask two final questions to you both, if I may. First of all, how
close or far away do you judge al-Qaeda are to getting weapons
of mass destruction and do you judge, if they are getting close,
the greater threat to be from some form of nuclear device or chemical
device or biological weapon? The second question is do you have
any specific recommendations to the Committee as to what greater
specific measures the British Government should be taking to protect
the people of this country and British interests abroad from further
al-Qaeda terrorism?
Ms Corbin: Al-Qaeda has long been
in the market for both enriched uranium material for a possible
nuclear device and for biological and chemical devices. As far
back as their time in the Sudan they were actively seeking this.
I personally do not believe they are close to acquiring it. I
think they have done a lot of preliminary work, but it is at a
very low level involving very crude devices, basic research, although
I think there is some evidence that they have an interest in anthrax
which is very worrying. So we know the intention is there. We
have seen no evidence yet that they have got near to achieving
it. However, I think the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a few
months ago has put more concern in the minds of the authorities
because as I understand it, certain computer discs and other documents
were discovered with him which showed that he had perhaps got
further down the road with crude biological poisons, ricin cyanide,
than we had imagined. I also think the fact that some of the people
associated with the 9/11 plot, particularly Zacarias Moussaoui
who came from Britain, he was a French-Moroccan but he had lived
in Britain, there is evidence that he had been looking at crop-spraying
aircraft, and we know what they could be used for. There are a
lot of indications there which we should have concern about but
I do not personally believe they are about to launch a dirty bomb
or to spread ricin or anthrax. It remains a possibility but I
think we should be aware of using scare tactics to alert the public.
The second point is, what advice would we give to the British
authorities? I think it has to be close intelligence cooperation.
We have seen the successful attempts to round up the group in
Wood Green who were experimenting with ricin in this country recently
and other such successful operations by our own security forces.
As I understand it they had very much a continental element, there
was a lot of intelligence sharing with France, with Belgium, with
Spain and other countries, and that is absolutely essential because
they are a Europe-wide network, if not a worldwide network. At
the moment intelligence sharing is the single most important thing
and the ability to act promptly when they get that information.
Professor Wilkinson: I agree with
Jane that they have shown a great interest in pursuing these weapons.
I would disagree about how far away they are from actually carrying
out an attack involving chemical weapons. I think that we can
already see, and I have outlined them on the fourth page of text
in the paper that I have provided to the Committee, a number of
instances where they have already used poisons and chemicals.
For example they were thwarted in an effort to use a nerve gas
in an attack in Strasbourg; a cyanide attack on the water supply
of the US Embassy was thwarted; Volumes 11 and 12 of the encyclopaedia
of the Jihad, which al-Qaeda use for training purposes, are about
CBRN[10]
weapons; we have video tape evidence from Afghanistan of the experiments
they were doing with a cyanide based gas. Some of you may have
seen some excerpts of it shown on news programmes, dogs being
subjected to this gas. I do not doubt that they have the capability
of using a crude chemical weapon device now and I think it is
quite possible that they have the means to conduct a dirty bomb
attack; after all all that you need is a high explosive technique,
which they have obviously mastered fully from their recent experience
of massive bombings, and coat that with radioactive isotopes,
which we know are very badly secured in most countries and many
areas of life, and you have a dirty bomb. I think the Americans
were very concerned when they made an arrest in the States of
an individual who was suspected of involvement in reconnoitring
a target for a dirty bomb. I do not think we are so far away from
that, unfortunately, which is why I believe one of the things
we need to do in addition to this increased intelligence coordination—which
Jane rightly stresses is the key to the whole business—is
we should also be examining our measures to prevent and, if necessary
(sadly if we are too late in our preventive tactics) measures
to deal with the consequences of a chemical or biological weapon
or possibly a dirty bomb using radiological materials. I think
it is unrealistic for us to assume that al-Qaeda and its affiliates
are not really interested in doing this and will not take the
opportunity of using it when they see the chance. I think we need
to be realistic. We therefore need to do emergency planning and
make sure that we do it. I believe a big emergency exercise was
put off because of the Iraq War. I do not think it is wise to
delay. We need to train our first responders, our police, all
of the emergency services because they could save very large numbers
of lives if the worst happened.
Q337 Chairman: One final question
before we see Mr Keane, it is this: Ms Corbin, I was interested
in what you were saying about the links with organised crime,
credit card fraud and front companies. Organised crime also have
networks for bringing in drugs, highly successfully from their
point of view, into this country. To what extent do you know of
any linkages between organised crime, narco groups and those terrorist
groups which can constitute a serious threat to the UK?
Ms Corbin: I think there is some
evidence that in the years in Afghanistan when the Taliban ruled
there was some evidence that bin Laden and al-Qaeda profited from
the heroin trade or at least helped the Taliban in the organisation
of some of the distribution of drugs. I do not personally believe
it is a big threat because al-Qaeda's extreme religious beliefs
rule out that kind of organised crime linkage with narcotics.
I think it has been much more narrowly defined in terms of raising
cash for their own ends through credit card fraud. The drug issue
is less important. However, we do know that organised crime networks,
particularly the Russian ones, have been cited as pathways through
which dirty bomb material and uranium could pass from one country
to another, and there are many examples of that. One individual
was apprehend in the States who is believed to have had links
to organised crime, an al-Qaeda individual called Jose Padilla.
There have been incidents of al-Qaeda individuals arrested and
found to have those linkages. It is a threat but personally I
believe as far as drugs are concerned there is not too much of
a linkage as yet.
Q338 Chairman: Professor, are drug
networks being used?
Professor Wilkinson: I agree with
Jane's assessment and I have nothing to add to that. I think they
are really into financial crime rather than drug crime.
Q339 Andrew Mackinlay: Forgive me
if this is a naive question, for all their fund raising activities
they have to deposit it somewhere. Traditionally gangsters have
front organisations, the entertainment world and businesses large
and small, perhaps even old factories. Where is the cocoa tin
for al-Qaeda? One of the things I find astonishing is it seems
to me to be able to master all this fundraising and to deploy
it, distribute it and hide it requires a massive organisation,
and it amazes me how it cannot be stumbled upon. How do you suspect
they are able to hold this money? Is it true, they get much more
in cash, unlike other organised gangsters, or is throughout the
world in some very respectable corporate organisations?
Professor Wilkinson: Some of it
is invested in what appear to be legitimate business organisations,
some of it in shipping, some of it in agricultural concerns, some
in invested local industries like construction.
7 Ev 78. Back
8
Armed Islamic Group. Back
9
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. Back
10
Chemical. Biological, radiological, nuclear weapons. Back
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