Nightspots in Bali softest and easiest target of terror

Nightspots in Bali softest and easiest target of terror

Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian News Service, London

For a month, while their political masters have been
increasingly obsessed by Saddam Hussein, western intelligence
agencies have warned of planned terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda or,
more likely, other Islamist extremist groups with similar
objectives and outlook.

They have warned in particular about the likelihood of attacks
on such American and British targets as bases and embassies --
targets, in other words, which represent the governmental or
military presence of major western countries in the Muslim world.
Commercial targets, equally symbolic, were also in their sight.

The awful message of the bombing of the Bali nightclub is that
Islamist extremists appear to have changed their tactics with
horrific implications. Bali may be a Hindu region dominated by
western tourists in the world's largest Muslim country, but the
nightclub was the easiest and softest of targets.

U.S. officials early this year said that five suspected
members of the al-Qaeda network had arrived in Indonesia from
Yemen in July 2001 planning to blow up the American embassy in
Jakarta. They said the men were allowed to get out of the country
after they realized they had been discovered.

More recently, the U.S. had expressed concern about the
failure of President Megawati Soekarnoputri's government --
caught between Washington, on whom Indonesia relies for aid, and
opposition in the country to U.S. policy, including the war in
Afghanistan -- to face up to the threat of Islamist extremism.
The U.S. has contrasted the attitude of the Indonesian government
with the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, which have taken a
far more robust approach.

Western intelligence sources on Sunday pointed the finger of
responsibility for the Bali attack on Jamaah Islamiyah, an
extreme group whose leaders are said to have met Ayman al-
Zawahiri, the 50-year-old Egyptian regarded as al-Qaeda's deputy
leader, in Indonesia two years ago.

Whoever was responsible for the attack, al-Qaeda and its
supporters have not been defeated. Just a week ago, a French oil
tanker was attacked off the coast of Yemen, not far away from the
October 2000 attack on the American destroyer, the USS Cole, in
Aden.

Since Sept. 11 last year, Pakistani-based extremist groups
have attacked a Christian church frequented by western diplomats,
and a bus carrying French technicians working in Karachi's
military port.

Intelligence sources have revealed a foiled plot this summer
by al-Qaeda agents to bomb U.S. or British warships in the
Straits of Gibraltar, and a possible attack on British military
bases in Cyprus. And early this year, the Singapore authorities
foiled an elaborate plot by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists to blow up
western embassies, American warships, the offices of U.S.
companies and a bus carrying American soldiers.

But while western intelligence agencies have been trying to
track the movements of al-Qaeda sympathizers and warned of the
certainty of further terrorists attacks, their governments have
been preoccupied by quite another matter -- Saddam Hussein and
his weapons of mass destruction.

Al-Qaeda -- a word which in Arabic can mean a base but also a
model or principle -- has lost its base in Afghanistan; Osama bin
Laden is either dead or in hiding, it doesn't matter. That has
been the prevailing attitude in Washington, and also in many
parts of the British government. The Taliban and al-Qaeda have
been quashed in Afghanistan, now let's take on the next target,
Iraq.

For security and intelligence agencies with their ear closer
to the ground, it is not so simple. Al-Qaeda is not a traditional
terrorist organization with a disciplined hierarchy like the IRA.
It is used, misleadingly, as shorthand for any Islamist extremist
group. It is more like a movement, almost amoeba-like, with
varying degrees of support and contacts with other groups
throughout much of the Muslim world, including Algeria, Egypt,
Yemen, Indonesia, and elsewhere in the Gulf, including Saudi
Arabia. But not among Palestinians, a generally secular people;
and certainly not in Baghdad, home of the most secular country in
the Middle East, Israel included.

Short-sighted politicians in Washington, notably Donald
Rumsfeld, the U.S. defense secretary, and his deputy, Paul
Wolfowitz, are putting it about that there are links between al-
Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. They have been trying desperately to
come up with evidence to prove it, a task which they have
singularly failed to achieve. But in trying they have diverted
the resources of their intelligence agencies, including the CIA,
and, worse, they are trying to manipulate intelligence-gathering
for political ends.

No one in any competent position in the British government
believes there is any link between al-Qaeda and Saddam. They do
not want this said publicly for fear, it seems, of upsetting the
Bush administration. Bush, meanwhile, having dealt with
Afghanistan, wants to get on with the task of toppling Saddam,
claiming it is part of the war on terror.

To begin with, Afghanistan is not dealt with. It remains
unstable. Asked the other day what the U.S. approach was to
rebuilding nationhood and to the struggle for hearts and minds --
one of the key ingredients of the war against terror, according
to British ministers, a senior British official replied: "The
Americans are on another planet."

This frustration with the Bush administration is expressed
publicly by former president Bill Clinton and his vice-president,
Al Gore. Tony Blair and his ministers are now silent about the
dangers of fighting a war on two fronts, against Saddam and
against terrorism.

Yet before they were told by Bush, in his domestic political
interest, that the time had come to concentrate on Saddam,
British ministers made eminently sensible speeches about the need
to confront terrorism inspired by Islamist extremism not only by
good intelligence work but also by tackling the causes. Terrorism
may never end, but at least there are ways to limit it other than
throwing around one's military might.

It will now be even more difficult for Bush to justify an
invasion and occupation of Iraq, which is only likely to
encourage further recruits to the cause of Islamist extremism.
Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, was right recently
when he warned in a little-noticed speech of the twin dangers of
terrorism and failing states. But these dangers were overlooked
in Indonesia, as hundreds of innocent victims have now found to
their cost.