Al Qaeda's Smart Bombs
By ROBERT A. PAPE
Chicago
WHILE we don't yet know who organized the terrorist attacks in London on
Thursday, it seems likely that they were the latest in a series of bombings,
most of them suicide attacks, over the past several years by Al Qaeda and
its
supporters. Although many Americans had hoped that Al Qaeda has been badly
weakened by American counterterrorism efforts since Sept. 11, 2001, the
facts
indicate otherwise. Since 2002, Al Qaeda has been involved in at least 17
bombings that killed more than 700 people - more attacks and victims than in
all
the years before 9/11 combined.
To make sense of this campaign, I compiled data on the 71 terrorists who
killed themselves between 1995 and 2004 in carrying out attacks sponsored by
Osama bin Laden's network. I was able to collect the names, nationalities
and
detailed demographic information on 67 of these bombers, data that provides
insight into the underlying causes of Al Qaeda's suicide terrorism and how
the
group's strategy has evolved since 2001.
Most important, the figures show that Al Qaeda is today less a product of
Islamic fundamentalism than of a simple strategic goal: to compel the United
States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian
Peninsula and other Muslim countries.
_As the chart on bottom shows_
(javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/07/08/opinion
/20050709_pape.html', '20050709_pape',
'width=670,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')) , the
overwhelming
majority of attackers are citizens of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf
countries in which the United States has stationed combat troops since
1990. Of
the other suicide terrorists, most came from America's closest allies in
the
Muslim world - Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco - rather than
from those the State Department considers "state sponsors of terrorism"
like
Iran, Libya, Sudan and Iraq. Afghanistan produced Qaeda suicide terrorists
only
after the American-led invasion of the country in 2001. The clear
implication
is that if Al Qaeda was no longer able to draw recruits from the Muslim
countries where there is a heavy American combat presence, it might well
collapse.
_As the top chart shows_
(javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/07/08/opinion
/20050709_pape.html', '20050709_pape',
'width=670,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')) , what is
common among the
attacks is not their location but the identity of the victims killed. Since
2002, the group has killed citizens from 18 of the 20 countries that Osama
bin
Laden has cited as supporting the American invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq.
There is good evidence that this shift in Al Qaeda's scheme was the product
of deliberate choice. In December 2003, the Norwegian intelligence service
found a lengthy Qaeda planning document on a radical Islamic Web site that
described a coherent strategy for compelling the United States and its
allies to
leave Iraq. It made clear that more spectacular attacks against the United
States like those of 9/11 would be insufficient, and that it would be more
effective to attack America's European allies, thus coercing them to
withdraw
their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and increasing the economic and
military
burdens that the United States would have to bear.
In particular, the document weighed the advantages of attacking Britain,
Poland and Spain, and concluded that Spain in particular, because of the
high
level of domestic opposition to the Iraq war, was the most vulnerable.
"It is necessary to make utmost use of the upcoming general election in
Spain
in March next year," the document stated. "We think that the Spanish
government could not tolerate more than two, maximum three, blows, after
which it
will have to withdraw as a result of popular pressure. If its troops still
remain in Iraq after these blows, then the victory of the Socialist Party
is
almost secured, and the withdrawal of the Spanish forces will be on its
electoral
program."
That prediction, of course, proved murderously prescient. Yet it was only
one
step in the plan: "Lastly, we emphasize that a withdrawal of the Spanish or
Italian forces from Iraq would put huge pressure on the British presence, a
pressure that Tony Blair might not be able to withstand, and hence the
domino
tiles would fall quickly."
No matter who took the bombs onto those buses and subways in London, the
attacks are clearly of a piece with Al Qaeda's post-9/11 strategy. And while
we
don't know if the claim of responsibility from a group calling itself the
Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe was legitimate, an understanding
of Al
Qaeda's strategic logic may help explain why that message included a threat
of further attacks against Italy and Denmark, both of which contributed
troops
in Iraq.
The bottom line, then, is that the terrorists have not been fundamentally
weakened but have changed course and achieved significant success. The
London
attacks will only encourage Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda leaders in the
belief that they will succeed in their ultimate aim: causing America and its
allies to withdraw forces from the Muslim world.
Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of
Chicago, is the author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide
Terrorism."
Source:
_http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/opinion/09pape.html?incamp=article_popula
r_
(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/opinion/09pape.html?incamp=article_popula
r)
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