August 4 2001

Comment

Over the last two years, Osama Bin Laden and his Islamic Front have suffered some serious setbacks; members of Bin Laden’s terror group, Al Qaeda, composed of ideological mercenaries, have been arrested all over the world, as have operatives of other groups and terror cells affiliated with him. Most of the plots of these groups have been foiled by the local security services, with the help of extensive international cooperation and the would-be perpetrators sentenced to long prison terms.

The elaborate details revealed in some of the highly-profile trials particularly those in New York and Los Angles have laid bare the way in which the Islamic Network operates. What has been revealed is the underlying operating principle of Bin Laden’s international Islamic Front, according to which terrorists are imported and exported to and from Afghanistan a principle of push and pull, or initiate and promote, on the one hand, and attract and absorb on the other.

Initiate and impel

As was revealed by the testimony of members of the cell that carried out the attacks on trial in New York, the idea of an attack in Nairobi was initiated by the Headquarters of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Some members of the group were sent to Kenya to make a first reconnaissance tour and returned to Afghanistan with their findings. The information was personally reviewed by Bin Laden and the operation was initiated. Members were ordered to establish an infrastructure there, to marry local women and to assimilate into the country, in order to prepare a local infrastructure. They further collected information on potential targets, rented houses, purchased materials and equipment. At the appropriate stage in the operation, Headquarters sent the professionals to supervise the last-minute preparations. Usually, the commander of the operation lives apart from the other members of the squad, as do the demolition expert, and any suicide bomber or bombers.

Each of Al Qaeda’s showcase terror attacks is supervised by a senior operational commander, who is the only one who knows all the details of the operation and the identity of all participants. This is a necessary component of the compartmentalization. The same basic pattern was revealed in the attack on the USS Cole in October, 2000 an attack which was supervised by Al Qaeda from Afghanistan.

The USS Cole affair
The suicide attack on the U.S. destroyer was directed and supervised by one of Al Qaeda’s senior professional operatives in Afghanistan. This man, who was in charge of the preparations for the attack from around mid 1999, goes by a number of aliases, including Muhammad el Nashiri, Al Mohammad al Kharezi,.and Abd el-Rahman Hussein Zaafani. The local infrastructure in Yemen was built with the assistance of a Yemenite national named al-Jamal al-Badawi. Badawi served as a pivotal member of the Yemenite cell [New York Times, 10/12/00], and admitted to having been trained in Afghanistan in ‘97, where he swore allegiance to Bin Laden. [Newsweek, 19/03/01]

Badawi, together with Al Zaafani made all the operational arrangements: renting apartments to be used for surveillance, and purchasing the boat that was to carry the explosives to the target. The operational cell was comprised of from 6 to 8 conspirators and assistants. They were assisted by local Yemenite nationals, among them, apparently, some government officials. The two suicide bombers believed to have been Saudi nationals of Yemenite origin apparently came to Yemen from abroad only a few days before the attacks. [Washington Post, 14/11/00].

Zaafani, the commander and supervisor of the terror cell, is believed to have been the demolition expert who prepared the boat-bomb. The original operation was planned for the beginning of January 2000 and was aimed at hitting the USS Sullivan.[AP Aden 11/11/00] However, due to a miscalculation of the weight of the explosive charge, the boat sank when the explosive charge was put on board. This delayed the operation for 10 months, so that it was eventually carried out against the USS Cole, which arrived at Aden port for a short layover on October 2000.

The attack caused 17 fatalities and an estimated $100 million in damage [Reuters 10.11.00]. This very professional attack bore all the hallmarks of Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Among the traits characteristic of the organization’s operations are:

1. A relatively long time spent in preparations
2. Thorough planning
3. The operation depends on local infrastructure built by a local figure trained in Afghanistan.
4. The attack is carried out under the supervision of an expert from the Headquarters in Afghanistan, who personally oversees the operation
5. The attack is aimed at causing maximum casualties and damage.
6. The attack uses one or more suicide bombers.
7. No one ever claims direct responsibility for the attack; instead cover names are used to preserve the operation’s deniability. Thus, bin Laden and his hosts in Afghanistan can disassociate themselves from the attack.

Attract and Incorporate

In some cases individuals who were previously involved in terror activity in their countries of origin travel to Afghanistan to further their training, under the inspiration and with the assistance of the Islamic Front . It is no surprise, then, to find such individuals returning to their own countries as a kind of vanguard of Islamic terrorism.

Examples for this type of activity are the operations that were intercepted in Jordan in December 1999 and in Israel in June 2000. In these two cases, Islamic radicals from Jordan and Israel were attracted to the revolutionary life in Afghanistan. While undergoing instruction at bin Laden’s training camps, there and were introduced to Al Qaeda’s Islamic circles. After being indoctrinated and trained, they were sent back to carry out their violent activities in their own time and by their own means, but equipped with better skills and with open lines of communications to the headquarters in Afghanistan, and to local headquarters of the Islamic Front.

Ahmed Ressam and the Millenium bomb plot
An example of this attraction and absorption principle is the case of Ahmed Ressam, 34 year-old Algerian national. Ressam was apprehended by U.S. Custom officers on 14 December 1999, while attempting to cross the border from Vancouver, British Colombia to Seattle. In his possessions was found about 50 kg of explosive materials and some improvised detonators. Ressam was accused of planning a terrorist campaign in the United States during the Millennium festivities, including an attack on the Space Needle in Seattle. Ressam refused to cooperate with the authorities, but a massive counter-terrorism effort netted a number of his accomplices in the United States, Canada, Algiers and Europe.

Ahmed Ressam went on trial in Seattle, and in April 2001, was sentenced to 140 years in prison. He then decided to cooperate with the authorities, and as a key witness in the trial of his associates in New York, he described his journey from Algiers to the U.S. and his connections to Bin Laden’s terror network in Afghanistan and in Europe.

Ressam emigrated from Algiers in 1992. His first stop was Corsicand from there he traveled to Canada in 1994. In Canada he contacted the North African community in Montreal and became a regular at the local mosque. He was influenced by Hanashi, the religious preacher of this mosque, who noted Reasam’s aspirations to fight for Islamic causes.

In 1998, Ressam went to Afghanistan, equipped with a letter of recommendation from Hanashi. There he met Zein al Abadin known as Abu Zubeidah, the man in charge for the absorption of volunteers to the global Jihad campaign. Ressam was sent to the Al Khaldun training camp.[Josh Meyer, Terrorist Says Plans Didn't End with LAX. L.A.Times, 4/07/01]

Ahmed Ressam spent about six months in various training camps, including one and a half month in progressive training in Darunte camp. He received instruction in the use of small arms, demolition techniques, and poison. During his training, he met some 100 Muslim volunteers from Algiers, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and from European countries like Germany, France and Sweden. At the end of his training period, he was given $12,000 toward his future terrorism campaign.[Ibid.]

Ressam returned to Canada meet his accomplices, who were to help him carry out attacks in the USA. However, some of his cellmates in UK were refused entry to Canada, while others got cold feet. He decided to carry on by himself. He asked Algerians co-patriots residing in Canada to assist him in obtaining forged documents.

In the end, Ressam decided to focus his attack on the LAX international airport in L.A., chosen for its strategic and symbolic importance, and thus best suited to the strategic goals of the Islamic Network [New York internet 4/06/01]. During his trial, Ressam said that he had spent about a year planning the attack.

Ressam also admitted that these plans were discussed in Afghanistan with Dr. Haidar, also known as Abu Doha, who was arrested in the UK in February 2001. Abu Doha is the most senior figure in the Islamic network so far arrested in Europe. He was connected to a terrorist cell whose members were arrested in Germany in December 2000, and in Spain in June 200. The cells had planned to carry out terror attacks on a local Cathedral and a market place in Strasbourg on New Year Eve of 2001.[L.A. Times internet 8/07/01] American authorities have requested Abu Doha’s extradition for his role in the planned LAX attack.[Josh Miller, Man Charged as Bomb Plot Mastermind, L.A.Times 16/06/01]

Ressam’s testimony provided an intimate glimpse into the philosophy behind the indirect channel of Bin Laden’s Islamic network. Activities on this track are fully assisted in the training phase, and are subject to bin Ladin’s indoctrination process. Operatives are initiated into the doctrine of the international Jihad, but are not given any direct orders by Al Qaeda’s leader on how to implement their terrorist missions. Thus bin Laden is able to wash off his hands of the terrorist attacks, after they are either carried out or foiled.

The fact remains that those terror attacks carried out under the direct supervision of Al Qaeda, such as those in East Africa in August 1998 and Yemen in October 2000 were successful, while those of planned by the independent cells failed. These failures do not seem to have upset bin Laden, largely for the following reasons:

1. They do not directly implicate him in terrorism
2. The independent operatives are, for the most part, redundant. There are many more to replace them and the setback is only temporary.
3. Al Qaeda’s operations are infrequent, but successful, giving him ample material for propaganda by the deed, and to recruit new volunteers.
4. Bin Laden perceives the struggle between the Islamic Front and the Judeo-Christian Alliance as a perpetual struggle, which will end in his unequivocal triumph.

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