http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/20/islamist-terrorism-jihad-cx_1221oxford_prin
t.html
Islamist Terrorism Poses Renewed Threat
Oxford Analytica 12.21.07, 6:00 AM ET
In early October, then-U.S. National Counterterrorism Center Director Scott
Redd said that the U.S. public was not "tactically" safer than it was before
the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Many other U.S. and European officials ended 2007 less optimistic about the
global terrorism situation than they began it.
This is in spite of the more positive outcomes of the international
community's response to terrorism:
--The U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 initially hobbled
al-Qaida by loosening command-and-control links between its core leadership
and dispersed operatives.
--The network may still be less capable of executing attacks of the scale
and lethality of the Sept. 11 operation.
--Improved homeland security may have prevented terrorist attacks, notably
in the United States.
--The Iraq intervention and occupation may have temporarily drawn some
jihadists to Iraq and away from other potential "fields of jihad."
Yet, Islamist terrorism poses a renewed threat in 2008 amid signs of
sustained and possibly increasing robustness among al-Qaida and its
affiliates and the enduring resonance of its ideology.
As 2007 drew to a close, intensifying instability prevailed across the key
fronts of Islamist terrorism. With the United States, the United Kingdom and
NATO preoccupied in Iraq and Afghanistan, there have been increased
incidents of terrorist activity in multiple regions, often exhibiting
cross-pollination of tactics:
--Pakistan. Political fluidity and instability in Pakistan had the effect of
relaxing government pressure on the Taliban and on al-Qaida, which has
reconstituted a territorial base in Pakistan's tribal areas near the Afghan
border.
--Afghanistan. Al-Qaida is opportunistically increasing its activity in
Afghanistan and seeking to re-establish a base there as the Taliban regain
strength. While some of the backing for this resurgence comes from poppy
production, support from foreign sources also appears to have increased.
Casualties from suicide bombings, relatively unknown prior to 2006, have
spiked in the past two years.
--North Africa. The September 2006 "re-branding" of the Algerian Salafist
Group for Preaching and Combat as "Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb" signaled
an embrace of trans-national themes by a group whose prior aims were
predominantly national in scope. The broadening of target choice to
encompass Western interests as well as Algerian state institutions was
confirmed in a plot to attack U.K. and U.S. embassies, and a double suicide
bombing in Algiers in December that killed 17 U.N. officials.
--Somalia. Since Ethiopia's December 2006 invasion of Somalia, which
displaced the Council of Somali Islamic Courts regime in Mogadishu and
installed the Transitional Federal Government, a complex insurgency has
developed. Carried out by clan and Islamist fighters, its tactics--targeted
assassinations, roadside bombings and some suicide attacks against Ethiopian
and government forces and facilities--reflect those of the insurgency in
Iraq.
--Europe. Early in November, the head of the U.K. Security Service ("MI5")
made a speech raising the publicly acknowledged estimate of the number of
active terrorist supporters in the country from 1,600 to 2,000. He warned
that the problem had not yet peaked and that radical Islamists were
methodically grooming and radicalizing individuals as young as 15 for acts
of terror.
The one region where better news has emerged is South-east Asia. Efforts by
the Indonesian authorities appear to have weakened Jemaah Islamiah, while
the Philippines has claimed significant victories against Abu Sayyaf and
reported progress in peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. A
separatist insurgency in the Muslim-majority provinces of southern Thailand
has intensified, but there is little evidence that militants there have
systematic links to regional or global Islamist movements.
To read an extended version of this article, log on to Oxford
<http://www.oxan.com/oxweb/logon.aspx?ReturnURL=%2Fdisplay%2Easpx%3FItemID%3
DDB139399> Analytica's Web site.
Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on a
network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading
universities and research institutions around the world. For more
information, please visit www.oxan.com <http://www.oxan.com/> . To find out
how to subscribe to the firm's Daily Brief Service, click here
<http://www.oxan.com/partners/forbes/landing.asp> .
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--------------------------
Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
--------------------------
Brooks Isoldi, editor
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.intellnet.org
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has
not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of
The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT
YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods,
techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other
intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use
this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,'
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
