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Bin Laden and the threat of peace
Once again, a masterfully worded
statement, using images that simultaneously exploit the psychological vulnerabilities
and political faultlines in the US, even as they send out a powerful message to
radical Muslims everywhere, has been released by Osama
bin Laden. The audio tape, first played out on Al Jazeera, addresses its message
to “the people of America” — as did earlier messages of November 2002, October
2003 and November 2004 — and plays on the American disenchantment with the course
of the war in Iraq, with President Bush’s policies, with American guilt and with
the American horror of “bodybags”. At
the same time, it holds out a threat and an “option” for peace. The US has not
been spared another attack after 9/11 because of any “failure to break through
your security measures”. The Al Qaeda’s capacities
have been demonstrated by the jihadis who have “repeatedly penetrated all security”
in European capitals to execute attacks; “the delay” in mounting another attack
in the US is because “the operations are under preparation and you will see them
in your homes the minute they are through (with their preparations)”. There is,
on the other hand, an offer of “a long-term truce on fair conditions that we adhere
to” since, “We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat”. The message
also has evocative images of the American soldier in Iraq who “has no solution
except to commit suicide”; of a war the Bush administration
has already lost; and of American “criminality” that is no different from “Saddam’s
criminality”. But for
all its eloquence and iconography, this latest message adds little to the hard
intelligence available on the state of the Al Qaeda, the location and capacities
of its leadership, and the real threat of imminent attack — or, indeed, the potential
for “truce”. Indeed, with natural variations relating to developments in the situations
in various theatres — such as the references to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and the terrorist attacks in Europe — the core message is fairly consistent with
the past. The November 2004 message, for instance, also offered a scathing review
of US policies, and threatened to continue the policy of “bleeding America to
the point of bankruptcy”, even as it recommended the “ideal way to prevent another
Manhattan”. There are
widely divergent assessments regarding Al Qaeda’s surviving capacities, and a
tendency to conflate the many groups currently operating with almost complete
autonomy, but that claim affiliation with the Al Qaeda, such Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s
outfit in Iraq, and a number of South Asian affiliates: the remnants of the Taliban,
Lashkar-e-Taiba and Sipah-e-Sahaba in Pakistan, or Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami in Bangladesh.
It is necessary to distinguish these groups from the Al Qaeda core over which
bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri exercise direct operational control. The latter
group is almost certainly located in the border areas of Pakistan, and continues
to supervise a small number of cells in Europe and America — and these will be
the core of any future catastrophic attack. The larger “Al Qaeda movement”, however,
has now been tactically fragmented into a large number of independent organisations
and constituent cells, the discovery and neutralisation of any one of which has
little impact on the others. Some
Western scholars have concluded that this imposes a necessary diminution in operational
capacities, but the reverse is, in fact, the case; there has been a dramatic expansion
of capacities and geographical reach through the “global jihad movement” after
9/11. The Al Qaeda was never a large and integrated global network, but a conglomerate
of loose associations, with the central organisation planning and executing a
small number of extrardinarily dramatic operations on its own. Not even its closest
affiliates have ever been part of these operations. There is no reason to believe
that this core network has been destroyed, and its objective will be to mount,
at an indefinite time in the future, another catastrophic attack on America or
on an American ally, which would help catalyse a further and exponential mobilisation
of Islamist terrorism in theatres across the world — as did 9/11 in the past.
There’s been a great
deal of talk, again, of the loss of capacities as a result of US and Pakistani
action against the Al Qaeda in Pakistan, and the over 600 “Al Qaeda terrorists”
handed over to the US are ordinarily cited as proof. But with rare exception,
the bulk of “Al Qaeda terrorsts” arrested and killed in Pakistan have been zero-value
targets, and many of those in US custody have been or will be released without
charge. Most high-value targets neutralised have been the result of unilateral
US action — such as the January 13 air attack at Damdola village in the Bajaur
Agency — or of action forced upon Pakistan as a result of US intelligence and
pressure. Despite the assassination bids on General Musharraf in December 2003,
which have been linked to the Al Qaeda by Pakistan, there is reason to believe
that Pakistan continues to seek to “manage” the larger Islamist extremist enterprise.
Even if Pakistani intentions were to destroy the Al Qaeda, the presence of tens
of thousands of sarkari jehadis create a context and environment within which
the isolation and targeting of a specific group becomes an operational impossibility.
(Published
in Indian Express, January 21, 2006) |