[iwar] [fc:Qaeda's.New.Links.Increase.Threats.From.Global.Sites]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-06-16 07:51:24
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/international/16QAED.html?todaysheadlines=&pagewanted=print&position=top">http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/international/16QAED.html?todaysheadlines=&pagewanted=print&position=top>

   June 16, 2002

  Qaeda's New Links Increase Threats From Global Sites

  By THE NEW YORK TIMES

  [T]his article was reported and written by David Johnston, Don Van
Natta Jr.  and Judith Miller. 

  WASHINGTON, June 15 — A group of midlevel operatives has assumed a
more prominent role in Al Qaeda and is working in tandem with Middle
Eastern extremists across the Islamic world, senior government officials
say.  They say the alliance, which extends from North Africa to
Southeast Asia, now poses the most serious terrorist threat to the
United States. 

  This new alliance of terrorists, though loosely knit, is as fully
capable of planning and carrying out potent attacks on American targets
as the more centralized network once led by Osama bin Laden, the
officials said. 

  Classified investigations of the Qaeda threat now under way at the
F.B.I.  and C.I.A.  have concluded that the war in Afghanistan failed to
diminish the threat to the United States, the officials said.  Instead,
the war might have complicated counterterrorism efforts by dispersing
potential attackers across a wider geographic area. 

  The ability of the loose network to achieve deadly results was
displayed Friday in Karachi, Pakistan, when a car bomb exploded outside
the American Consulate, killing 11 people and injuring 26.  No Americans
were believed to have been killed.  Pakistani officials warned of a new
militant coalition with Qaeda remnants. 

  Moreover, as Al Qaeda followers have fled Afghanistan, the old bin
Laden hierarchy has been succeeded by tactical operatives with makeshift
alliances with militant groups in countries like Pakistan, Egypt and
Algeria. 

  Since the Taliban defeat in Afghanistan, intelligence analysts say
they have not regarded Al Qaeda as a spent force.  But they have
redefined estimates of its potency and reach, saying that the
American-led war in Afghanistan badly disrupted the group's leadership
and forced Mr.  bin Laden and his top lieutenants to turn to new
operational leaders. 

  "Al Qaeda at its core was really a small group, even though thousands
of people went through their camps," one official said of the bin Laden
training camps in Afghanistan.  "What we're seeing now is a radical
international jihad that will be a potent force for many years to come."

  At least seven Qaeda operatives, whose important roles have not been
previously disclosed, possess the managerial skill and authority to
carry out attacks, officials said.  They said the operatives have
assumed a larger leadership role in place of the central command group,
which was badly disrupted by the war in Afghanistan.  Muhammad Atef, the
military commander of Al Qaeda, was killed in American airstrikes last
November; he was the most senior member of Al Qaeda to be killed during
the fighting in Afghanistan. 

  One terrorism suspect who is said to personify the changing threat is
Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, a Qaeda member from Kuwait who authorities have
said was a central organizer of the Sept.  11 attacks.  He has been
sought by federal agents since the mid-1990's in a failed plot to blow
up a dozen American airliners over the Pacific Ocean.  The presence of
someone of his standing in carrying out large-scale attacks makes
intelligence officials worried.  But they say they cannot tell where,
how and when such attacks might come. 

  The six others include several Egyptian men who played a role in the
bombing attack on two United States embassies in East Africa in August
1998.  They also include Saif al-Adel, a Saudi who is believed to have a
seat on Al Qaeda's consultative council, helping to approve attacks,
including the embassy bombings. 

  To track the more dispersed remnants of Al Qaeda and its affiliates,
Robert S.  Mueller III, the F.B.I.  director, has created two analytical
units within the new counterterrorism analysis division to focus on what
analysts call the "international jihad."

  The current role of Al Qaeda's traditional leadership group and how
much power its members have been forced to cede to their midlevel
commanders is the subject of a debate among intelligence analysts about
whether Mr.  bin Laden is alive or dead. 

  As months go by without evidence of his whereabouts, several senior
officials said this week that they were skeptical that he survived the
American-led bombing in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan last
December.  But he has dropped from sight for long periods before and,
lacking proof, most experts remain unconvinced that he is dead. 

  Several senior government officials said they had recently picked up a
possible clue.  In Afghanistan, Mr.  bin Laden surrounded himself with a
phalanx of fanatically loyal security guards, a few of whom have
surfaced in other countries in recent months.  Some experts say that if
Mr.  bin Laden were alive, his retinue of guards would have remained by
his side. 

  One official who has monitored Al Qaeda for years said some of the new
central figures were drawn from the coalition that Mr.  bin Laden
assembled in late 1998 to help carry out his religious order to "kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military, in any country
where this is possible."

  The International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,
the umbrella group Mr.  bin Laden founded in February 1998 in a training
camp in eastern Afghanistan, included not only Al Qaeda, which had
militants from many countries, but also two leading militant groups from
Egypt, as well as Islamist groups from Algeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

  Some experts regard the formation of this alliance as Mr.  bin Laden's
most significant political achievement. 

  To some extent, Al Qaeda itself was always something of a hybrid that
staged not only highly structured, top-down attacks but also relied on
affiliated — or like-minded — militant groups that concocted and
financed their own schemes, with Al Qaeda's blessing, to strike at
American targets. 

  For example, Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian militant arrested in December
1999 trying to enter the United States from Canada to detonate a bomb at
Los Angeles International Airport during the nation's millennium
celebration, was seen by investigators as a freelancer who was part of
this broader network from which Al Qaeda recruited.  Though officials
say he trained at a Qaeda camp in Pakistan and received some help in
Canada from the group's operatives, they say he did not clear either his
specific target or his plot with Al Qaeda's leadership. 

  Law enforcement officials said it remained unclear whether Al Qaeda
directed more recent plots like the one ascribed to Jose Padilla, the
American who is said to have met with Al Qaeda leaders for discussions
about detonating a radioactive bomb in the United States.  The officials
said it was uncertain if Mr.  Padilla, a former gang member, had the
skills to build a bomb or acquire radiological material.  Like Richard
C.  Reid, the Briton accused of trying to blow up a Paris-to-Miami
flight in December by igniting explosives in his shoe, Mr.  Padilla has
emerged as a minor figure in sharp contrast to operatives like Mr. 
Muhammad, whom authorities regard as far more worrisome. 

  Although sworn members of Al Qaeda were estimated to number no more
than 200 to 300 men, officials say that at its peak this broader Qaeda
network operated about a dozen Afghan camps that trained as many as
5,000 militants, who in turn created cells in as many as 60 countries. 

  Foreign intelligence officials said that even if Al Qaeda's entire
leadership were eliminated, Western targets would remain at risk from
the broader network posed by radicalized militants from the two major
branches of Islam — the majority Sunni branch of the faith, and minority
Shiites. 

  "The Sunni Muslim threat will remain for the short-to-medium term,"
said one foreign intelligence official.  "A significant proportion of
them are from Egypt, Algeria and Somalia," the official added. 

  Regrouping the Network
  Clues on the Web to Remote Sites

  Smiling as he lounged on a floor pad in what appeared to be a private
home in Afghanistan, Mr.  bin Laden seemed to be fully in control.  Al
Qaeda's leader, in a videotape released by American authorities in
December, appeared intimately acquainted with the details of the Sept. 
11 hijackings. 

  On the tape, Mr.  bin Laden said he knew that the suicidal nature of
the plot was withheld from some of "the brothers" until just before the
hijackings.  Six days before the attacks, Mr.  bin Laden said he was
aware of the precise day and time of the attacks.  And he said he was
aware there would be multiple aircraft strikes at targets inside the
United States. 

  For intelligence analysts, the tape provided a critical piece of
information.  The video confirmed that Mr.  bin Laden could communicate
with his operational forces in the field.  The depth of his knowledge
indicated that he not only was an inspirational figure but also operated
as a commander in chief who was responsible for the attacks. 

  But since December, when the American-led raid at Tora Bora in
northeast Afghanistan sought to root out one of Al Qaeda's last
strongholds, Mr.  bin Laden, as intelligence analysts put it, has "gone
dark." Intelligence agencies have heard nothing from him for six months. 
None of their sources, electronic or human, have provided any clear
indication of his fate. 

  The fate of his terror network has been better understood.  In recent
months, Internet traffic among Al Qaeda followers indicates that
elements of the network have regrouped — some in remote sanctuaries in
Pakistan, government officials said. 

  Some of Mr.  bin Laden's midlevel commanders have turned to new Web
sites and Internet communications as part of what officials have
described as a concerted effort to reconstitute a terror network after
the rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

  The Internet activity indicates that some of Mr.  bin Laden's
followers may have fled to villages in the Pakistani province of
Baluchistan, along the Afghan border, a sometimes lawless region. 
American officials now believe that some of these villages in
Baluchistan could be serving as new sanctuaries for Al Qaeda members. 

  Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Donald H.  Rumsfeld said he had
seen indications that Al Qaeda followers had regrouped in the Kashmir
region, an area disputed by Pakistan and India.  Indian leaders have
long accused Pakistan of harboring Islamic militants in Kashmir. 

  The New Leadership
  Without a Chain, the Links Persist

  With Al Qaeda's leadership in disarray, at least seven Qaeda members
who have specialized in organization and tactics have assumed a more
prominent role within the loose coalition of remaining terrorist groups,
analysts and government officials said. 

  The officials said these Qaeda lieutenants have both the authority to
initiate attacks and the ability to carry them out by providing cash and
false documents to operatives. 

  "The operators who are still out there — they are the ones that will
conduct the next terrorist attack," a senior government official said. 

  Intelligence and law enforcement officials say they now believe that
Al Qaeda operatives like Mr.  Muhammad are operating independently, out
from under the control of the bin Laden chain of command, which may no
longer exist as a working command structure as it did in Afghanistan. 

  Besides Mr.  Muhammad, who was identified last week as being suspected
of having a major operational role in the Sept.  11 attacks, the
officials identified six other people whom they view as the planners of
new attacks.  Officials said they were scattered among several countries
to regroup the activities of what is left of Al Qaeda and operations
involving other terror groups. 

  "I'd sleep a lot better at night if these guys were off the street," a
senior government official said. 

  According to government officials, these are the key leaders:

  Saif al-Adel is said to sit on Al Qaeda's consultative council, the
group that approves all terrorist operations, including the embassy
bombings and the attack on the American warship Cole in October 2000 in
Yemen.  Mr.  Adel, a Saudi, came to Al Qaeda as part of its affiliation
with Egyptian Islamic Jihad.  The United States government has been
trying to find Mr.  Adel since 1993, when he trained tribal fighters to
attack the United Nations peacekeeping force in Somalia, an operation
that killed 18 American soldiers. 

  Fazul Abdullah Muhammad is a native of the Comoros Islands, an
impoverished archipelago in the Indian Ocean.  Using the alias Haroun
Fazul, Mr.  Muhammad was Al Qaeda's chief operative in Kenya in the
mid-1990's. 

  Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah is a 37-year-old Egyptian who was one of
five fugitives indicted in the two American Embassy bombings in East
Africa in 1998.  Mr.  Atwah was believed to have been in Afghanistan
last fall, but American authorities said this week they do not know his
current location. 

  Mustafa Muhammad Fadhil is an Egyptian who the authorities said was an
important organizational operative in Al Qaeda.  Mr.  Fadhil is believed
to have rented the house in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where a half dozen
conspirators made the car bomb that exploded outside the United States
Embassy there, an attack that killed 11 people.  Mr.  Fadhil was also
indicted in the embassy bombings case, but he has eluded capture.  An
American official this week said that Mr.  Fadhil "was one of the most
important people we are pursuing."

  Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian, has served since the early
1990's as a senior adviser to Mr.  bin Laden, officials said.  He was
indicted for his alleged involvement in the bombing of the American
Embassy in Nairobi.  Cooperating witnesses have told the authorities
that he conducted surveillance of the embassy three days before the
bombing. 

  Fahid Muhammad Ally Msalam, 26, is another Qaeda suspect wanted for
being directly involved in the bombing of the embassy in Nairobi.  Mr. 
Msalam, a Kenyan, is said to be the Qaeda member who bought the Toyota
truck that was used in the bombing.  Prosecutors say he packed it with
explosives and transported it to the embassy.  His fingerprints were
found on a magazine that was inside a Nike gym bag that also contained
clothing with traces of TNT, according to testimony at the embassy
bombing trial last year in Manhattan. 

  Senior government officials said that despite some Qaeda members who
have been captured or killed, the organization still has the ability to
initiate terrorist strikes. 

  One official said this about the remaining goal: "It's body bags. 
That's all that matters to them now."

  Tracking the New Network
  Shifting Alliances of Militant Groups

  In May, not long after a suicide assault, also in Karachi, that killed
11 French citizens, Pakistani intelligence officials told President
Pervez Musharraf that some of the country's most militant Islamic groups
had joined forces to carry out fresh attacks against American targets. 
Pakistani officials said they believed that the attack on the American
Consulate had been carried out by a new coalition of organizations drawn
from the remnants of Pakistani militant groups that were disrupted
during General Musharraf's crackdown earlier this year. 

  Officials emphasized that it was no longer possible simply to label
all post-Sept.  11 plots as Al Qaeda inspired, because the new terror
alliance has largely replaced the old bin Laden network.  Senior
government officials said this week that the Karachi bombing had been an
example of the new broad-based coalition of various terrorist groups
coming together for operations.  "What many of these groups have in
common, however, is that they had members go through the Al Qaeda
training camps in Afghanistan," one official said. 

  Investigators have also looked for clues of the remade terrorist
landscape in both the attacks and the foiled plots since Sept.  11. 

  At least six plots have been disrupted since Sept.  11.  The first, on
Sept.  13, was a plot to destroy the United States Embassy in Paris.  A
French citizen of Algerian ancestry was arrested in Paris and told
prosecutors that he was part of a Qaeda plot to blow up the embassy. 

  In Singapore last December, the police arrested what they described as
13 Qaeda members who were part of a cell that had prepared to blow up
embassies of the United States, Israel, Britain and Australia. 

  Earlier this week, Moroccan authorities said they had broken up a
Qaeda cell that had identified NATO ships in the Strait of Gibraltar as
potential targets. 

  Two men, both tied to Al Qaeda, have been arrested since Sept.  11:
Mr.  Reid, the shoe-bomb suspect who was accused of trying to blow up a
Paris-to-Miami flight on Dec.  22, and Mr.  Padilla, the former Chicago
gang member accused this week of beginning a plot to build and detonate
a "dirty bomb" in the United States. 

  Investigators say they see important similarities between Mr.  Reid
and Mr.  Padilla.  Neither man is the traditional Al Qaeda attacker —
Mr.  Reid is British, while Mr.  Padilla is American. 

  Although some government officials said Mr.  Padilla's dirty bomb plot
was only in its earliest stages, they said they were most struck that Al
Qaeda would use someone like Mr.  Padilla, whose American passport would
allow him to enter the country with ease.  "It's a very nice package for
them to be able to move somebody — he has the clean passport," one
official said.  "We have some strong leads and ideas of where his
support was coming from."

  In Mr.  Padilla's case, investigators said the new leadership's
resiliency illustrates a saying attributed by a senior official to Ayman
al-Zawahiri, a deputy to Mr.  bin Laden whose whereabouts are not known:
"Zawahiri described Al Qaeda as a bunch of grapes — even if you manage
to pull off one grape, you still have a lot more grapes left."

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