|
Warnings all round The horrific attacks in Kenya last week pose a number of fundamental questions about the war against terrorism and its progress. Most immediately, the suicide car bomb in Mombasa and the missile attack near the city's airport have directly involved Israel in the war, with all that entails. Israel is richly entitled - obliged, even - to signal that its response will be ferocious. But there can be no doubt that its intervention in the conflict is exactly what al-Qaeda has hoped for, just as Saddam Hussein longed to draw Israel into the Gulf War 11 years ago. The geopolitical mix of the war on terror is now even more explosive than it was. This, along with the bloody evidence that al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups still retain the power to unleash havoc upon civilians, will be used as an argument by opponents of the war that to prosecute the campaign further - in Iraq or elsewhere - will be to endanger many more Western lives. The opposite, of course, is the case. Were America and Britain to back down at this stage, a clear signal would be sent to fundamentalist Islam that terrorism works. The Mombasa atrocity should stiffen the resolve of the Western nations, not weaken it. One argument that should be dispensed with swiftly is the claim that attacks made by al-Qaeda or groups linked to it demonstrate that the campaign to dislodge Saddam Hussein is a diversion from the "real" war on terror. It is no such thing. Iraq, it is clear, has become a factory for weapons of mass destruction that could be used by other groups, under his patronage, against their mutual enemies in the West. It is too easily forgotten that Saddam was closely linked to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the subsequent training of terrorists in Sudanese camps - precisely the sort of operatives who may have been behind last week's attacks. A harder question for Britain is what should be learnt from last week's attacks about our system of official warnings. On Friday, the Foreign Office issued an alert to British tourists, referring to "an increased terrorist threat" in Kenya - a warning that looked no less grimly absurd than Jack Straw's observation after the Bali atrocity that that area was probably best avoided. In a letter to Michael Ancram, his Conservative shadow, Mr Straw said last week that "No information was available to Britain, America or Australia that could have prevented the attacks in Mombasa." Perhaps so, but that is not the point. What remains a matter of serious concern is that Australia, acting on information also available to the British Foreign Office, warned its citizens to stay away from Mombasa while the British Government did not. As we report today, staff at the British High Commission in Nairobi were told to stay away from certain likely targets - a warning that was not passed on to British tourists. It is perfectly proper for the Government to argue that it does not want to spread panic. But it becomes more difficult to sustain this position when other countries, in receipt of similar intelligence, choose to do otherwise. The aftermath of Bali and Mombasa has not inspired confidence in ministerial judgement in this matter. If there is one point of consensus between the British Government and Osama bin Laden, it is that this country and its citizens are, more than ever, a target for terrorist attack. MI5's website states explicitly that: "The UK's involvement in multi-national peacekeeping operations - in the Gulf, in former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone and most recently in Afghanistan - has also increased the terrorist threat to UK interests." In the statement by bin Laden broadcast last month, the al-Qaeda leader warned that "reciprocal treatment is part of justice" and singled out Britain as a target because of its alliance with America in the Afghan campaign. It is bleakly evident that the British Government will increasingly face the dilemma it faced in Bali and Mombasa at home. The dilemma is real, and those who wrestle with it deserve sympathy. To issue alerts too precipitously does the terrorists' work for them, spreading alarm and damaging the economy; it may also wreck criminal investigations. It should not be forgotten that the security services have allegedly thwarted at least two serious conspiracies already - an attack on a shopping centre allegedly planned in Christmas 2000, and the alleged plans of the Islamist cell in London intercepted by MI5 last month. These investigations might have been unsuccessful if the Government had panicked. What ministers need to remember is that reticence becomes self-defeating when people feel they are being lied to by politicians - or lied to more than is good for our health. It is vital in the months and years ahead that the public be able to trust the flow of information from Government and its assessment of the risk from terrorists. How they respond to this information will determine much else: not least, perhaps, the state of race relations if attacks are indeed made by radical Muslim groups on British soil. The stakes could scarcely be higher. In more ways than one, Mombasa should be a wake-up call. Previous story: They'll
have to think again about the Quiet American The Mulindwas
communication group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" |
