[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Not to mention the fact that AQ probably felt they could put a hole in the side of a ship, claim it, and withstand the relatively blind punch of a few cruise missiles sent in response, but a massacre on the scale of Sept 11th was going to draw a considerably more determined response. They were probably relying on world opinion demanding proof before allowing the US to go storming in and respond to the 9/11 attacks, so they wouldn't claim these attacks.If you look at patterns and purposes of terrorism,
you can see larger bits that don't fit into the neat AQ model. Why did
they not claim responsibility?And of course there a general logical arguement.
1)The attacks of 9/11 were terrorist attacks
2) No group claimed credit for the attacks
3)Therefore at least one terrorist group did not feel the need to claim credit for this deed.
Since we know that the abscence of claiming credit is a real strategy of at least one terrorist group we can feel confident Al Qada might have acted in this way.
(One wonders, in a post 9/11 world, whether a terrorist organisation could survive claiming any attack involving loss of US life, such as the embassy bombings and the Cole).
Russell C.
