The prime suspect is Osama bin Laden. Proving his guilt will be another matter
Sep 13th 2001
EARLY on in the assault, George Bush talked about an “apparent” terrorist attack. Although suspicion immediately fell on the FBI’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, Mr Bush’s caution is reasonable. The last time America witnessed an outrage on a remotely similar scale, in Oklahoma City in 1995, officials were quick to blame Muslim fanatics, only to discover that an American had done it.
That seems unlikely this time around. Americans are not prone to suicide attacks. The right-wing militia movement that spawned Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, is a shadow of its former self. The group to which McVeigh himself once belonged no longer has enough members with military experience to conduct proper training exercises. The likelihood of one of its counterparts marshalling the expertise to hijack and fly four commercial airliners is small. And the militia movement is now closely watched.
On the other hand, American intelligence about the Middle East has suffered lately, thanks to Arab anger at the plight of Iraqis under sanctions and Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Since the Palestinian intifada began last year, the State Department has worried that an outraged Arab might imitate the suicide bombings now common in Israel. It has issued several warnings about the threat of terrorist reprisals, including one on September 7th suggesting that militants might target Americans in Japan or South Korea. That implies that America had indeed expected an attack, but had disastrously bad intelligence about its nature.
Investigators have already turned up evidence pointing to Arab involvement. The Boston Herald has claimed that several men from the United Arab Emirates, including a trained pilot, had boarded one of the hijacked flights. Flight-training manuals in Arabic were reportedly found in a car parked outside Boston airport, where two of the planes were hijacked. Two suspects flew down to Boston from Portland, Maine—close to the Canadian border. There were also reports of triumphant telephone calls after the attack from Mr bin Laden’s followers. On Wednesday, arrests apparently connected to the investigation were made in Boston and Florida.
But even if, as seems likely, the authorities soon establish that the perpetrators were Muslim militants, they will find it harder to work out who sent them. Latter-day Islamic terrorists operate more through a loose fraternity than through rigidly hierarchical organisations. Past arrests of suspected militants in Canada, Germany, Britain, France and Jordan, as well as the United States, leave a picture of like-minded individuals providing one another with frequent support, occasionally coalescing into groups for specific attacks.
Many of these comrades, including Mr bin Laden, made one another’s acquaintance while fighting in Afghanistan. It may be possible to show that Mr bin Laden knew the perpetrators, but the paper trail is unlikely to reveal more than that. According to a Pakistani newspaper, he has already denied direct involvement.
Nonetheless, there are several reasons to suspect Mr bin Laden. First, he is one of the few terrorists capable of orchestrating such a daring and complicated series of attacks. He was blamed for the audacious assault on the USS Cole in Yemen last year, when suicidal militants steered a dinghy full of explosives into the American warship in Aden harbour. Mr bin Laden specialises in multiple attacks. Members of his organisation, al-Qaeda, carried out simultaneous attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, according to testimony given in a trial this year by some of those convicted for the bombings. Again, however, prosecutors could not prove that Mr bin Laden ordered the attacks. America also fingered him for another (foiled) plot, to bomb a string of airports and aircraft on the eve of the millennium.
Next, Mr bin Laden recently released a long video, during which he repeated his usual fulminations against America. An Arab journalist in London says he had heard talk of an “unprecedented” action against the United States. That fits Mr bin Laden’s habit of circulating virtual advertisements of forthcoming attacks.
Above all, the World Trade Centre has particular resonance for Mr bin Laden. It was there that the first big terrorist attack on American soil was mounted, in 1993, when a group of Egyptian, Pakistani and Palestinian terrorists planted a car bomb in the basement car park of one of the now-toppled twin towers. American investigators have long suspected that Mr bin Laden was involved.
A doubt is raised, however, by recent testimony in the trial of the East African bombers. Mr bin Laden’s former associates suggested that he was running short of funds. They also described endless bickering and confusion among his men. His former accountant, America’s star witness, stormed out of al-Qaeda after being refused a loan. If he was behind yesterday’s horrors, Mr bin Laden had clearly found some more dedicated employees
Sep 13th 2001
EARLY on in the assault, George Bush talked about an “apparent” terrorist attack. Although suspicion immediately fell on the FBI’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, Mr Bush’s caution is reasonable. The last time America witnessed an outrage on a remotely similar scale, in Oklahoma City in 1995, officials were quick to blame Muslim fanatics, only to discover that an American had done it.
That seems unlikely this time around. Americans are not prone to suicide attacks. The right-wing militia movement that spawned Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, is a shadow of its former self. The group to which McVeigh himself once belonged no longer has enough members with military experience to conduct proper training exercises. The likelihood of one of its counterparts marshalling the expertise to hijack and fly four commercial airliners is small. And the militia movement is now closely watched.
On the other hand, American intelligence about the Middle East has suffered lately, thanks to Arab anger at the plight of Iraqis under sanctions and Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Since the Palestinian intifada began last year, the State Department has worried that an outraged Arab might imitate the suicide bombings now common in Israel. It has issued several warnings about the threat of terrorist reprisals, including one on September 7th suggesting that militants might target Americans in Japan or South Korea. That implies that America had indeed expected an attack, but had disastrously bad intelligence about its nature.
Investigators have already turned up evidence pointing to Arab involvement. The Boston Herald has claimed that several men from the United Arab Emirates, including a trained pilot, had boarded one of the hijacked flights. Flight-training manuals in Arabic were reportedly found in a car parked outside Boston airport, where two of the planes were hijacked. Two suspects flew down to Boston from Portland, Maine—close to the Canadian border. There were also reports of triumphant telephone calls after the attack from Mr bin Laden’s followers. On Wednesday, arrests apparently connected to the investigation were made in Boston and Florida.
But even if, as seems likely, the authorities soon establish that the perpetrators were Muslim militants, they will find it harder to work out who sent them. Latter-day Islamic terrorists operate more through a loose fraternity than through rigidly hierarchical organisations. Past arrests of suspected militants in Canada, Germany, Britain, France and Jordan, as well as the United States, leave a picture of like-minded individuals providing one another with frequent support, occasionally coalescing into groups for specific attacks.
Many of these comrades, including Mr bin Laden, made one another’s acquaintance while fighting in Afghanistan. It may be possible to show that Mr bin Laden knew the perpetrators, but the paper trail is unlikely to reveal more than that. According to a Pakistani newspaper, he has already denied direct involvement.
Nonetheless, there are several reasons to suspect Mr bin Laden. First, he is one of the few terrorists capable of orchestrating such a daring and complicated series of attacks. He was blamed for the audacious assault on the USS Cole in Yemen last year, when suicidal militants steered a dinghy full of explosives into the American warship in Aden harbour. Mr bin Laden specialises in multiple attacks. Members of his organisation, al-Qaeda, carried out simultaneous attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, according to testimony given in a trial this year by some of those convicted for the bombings. Again, however, prosecutors could not prove that Mr bin Laden ordered the attacks. America also fingered him for another (foiled) plot, to bomb a string of airports and aircraft on the eve of the millennium.
Next, Mr bin Laden recently released a long video, during which he repeated his usual fulminations against America. An Arab journalist in London says he had heard talk of an “unprecedented” action against the United States. That fits Mr bin Laden’s habit of circulating virtual advertisements of forthcoming attacks.
Above all, the World Trade Centre has particular resonance for Mr bin Laden. It was there that the first big terrorist attack on American soil was mounted, in 1993, when a group of Egyptian, Pakistani and Palestinian terrorists planted a car bomb in the basement car park of one of the now-toppled twin towers. American investigators have long suspected that Mr bin Laden was involved.
A doubt is raised, however, by recent testimony in the trial of the East African bombers. Mr bin Laden’s former associates suggested that he was running short of funds. They also described endless bickering and confusion among his men. His former accountant, America’s star witness, stormed out of al-Qaeda after being refused a loan. If he was behind yesterday’s horrors, Mr bin Laden had clearly found some more dedicated employees
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق