Terrorist groups fast losing sympathy in the Arab world

Martin Woollacott, Guardian News Service, London

When the war in Iraq passed off without a single substantial terrorist attack in the region, let alone in the United States and Britain, it was taken as evidence that al-Qaeda and its allies had been weakened to a degree not suspected before. After all, the FBI had reportedly assigned 5,000 agents to the terrorism watch, temporarily suspending much criminal surveillance to do so, and many other governments took similar measures.

Nothing happened, causing the State Department's counterterrorism man, Cofer Black, to exclaim: "This was the big game for them -- you put up or shut up, and they have failed." Black had reason to regret those words after this month's attacks in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Pakistan, and the threats that have led to the suspension of flights to Kenya and put security forces on higher alert in America and Europe.

But was he wrong? Is al-Qaeda "back", assisted by the reaction of Arabs and other Muslims to the invasion and occupation of Iraq? The evidence is incomplete; the arguments are politically charged; and those who fight these murky battles are, like poker players, adept at sending off the wrong signals to their opponents. Say you will strike in one place or at one time, and then do so in another place and at another time. Say you are confident the danger is over, when you know it is not.

Say you fear an attack in this city, while you secretly prepare for it in another. But some warnings have to be honest, because citizens expect to be protected. And some threats have to be carried out as issued to convince supporters and potential supporters of the power of the organization and the justness of its cause.

These less than reliable signs suggest that first, al-Qaeda was always overestimated. The Afghan war destroyed its only secure base and the follow-up in Pakistan largely stymied its attempts to set up an alternative base in that country.

The second and newer thing that the evidence suggests is that the much-feared transformation of al-Qaeda into a decentralized, loose alliance of like-minded extremists, carries as many disadvantages for the terrorists as it does advantages. Pessimists say that the Afghan war has made things worse, spreading the virus everywhere, and wonder how intelligence services will be able to cope.

But the extremists who set up in Afghanistan did so precisely because their type of violent terrorism and their totalitarian ideas had failed in their own countries, and especially in Egypt, from which some of the more senior figures in al-Qaeda came. The authorities reacted with a vigor and sometimes with a ruthlessness which matched that of the extremist groups.

The people saw the results of violent action, and rejected it both for moral and practical reasons. And other Islamist politicians outflanked these organizers of massacres by offering to the discontented a less harsh version of Islamic renewal that was more likely to succeed.

The attacks of recent weeks show the extremists returning, or being forced back, to a theater in which they have failed before. That may well be the most important thing about this post-Iraq resurgence. The pattern is similar everywhere. A successful attack will kill Americans and other westerners and may inspire some young men to join the extremists. But it will have other consequences.

One, given that these are mainly suicide attacks, is that the groups are throwing away people who cannot be easily replaced. Whatever may be the case in Palestine, the idea that people are queuing up to die all across the Islamic world is wrong. John Gannon, former deputy director of the CIA and now staff director of Congress's homeland security committee, was surely right when he told the Washington Post that "there are not endless terrorists with endless threats". The Saudis say the core group they are seeking to arrest probably numbers 50, with supporters in the low hundreds. The Moroccans may have more of a problem than they were prepared to admit, but it is probably of not too different an order.

A second consequence is the sudden invigoration of security establishments that have been lazy or incompetent, or have looked the other way in the past. It seems possible, for example, that Saudi Arabia's interior minister may lose his job or at least be forced to accept officials who can do it for him. But the energization effect has been seen most clearly in Indonesia, where the Bali attacks led to a rolling up of Islamist radicals across the country.

Nor is there much protection for such groups, once they have made themselves prominent by an attack, in the impoverished areas like those around Casablanca from which some of the Moroccan suicide bombers came. Such places are not easily controlled by the police in a general way, but they are easily penetrated by informers.

The third consequence is the alienation of the public. Violent action is easily romanticized when it is a long way away. But when it comes home it is different, and yesterday's hero is today's wrecker. Even in Islamist terms, what was acceptable is suddenly less so. Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, writing in the Saudi newspaper Al Watan, condemned actions that have "spilled Muslim blood and led to the arrests of thousands of pious young men".

Supposed spokesmen of al-Qaeda may make grandiose claims that they outwitted the Americans, waiting until after the war to strike. Behind such vanity and posturing there may well be a degree of desperation. Even with the Americans in Iraq, and with much deplorable mismanagement evident in that country, there is no sign so far that American occupation can be made into the pivot of a successful campaign by the extremists, Their actions this month make that less rather than more likely.

There remains the dismal possibility that they will get lucky and that one of their operations will come off with truly cataclysmic, rather than merely dreadful, effect. But the picture otherwise is that, country by country, these groups are blowing their networks, spending their young men, waking up security establishments, and losing public sympathy.