The prime suspect in the spate of terrorist attacks against the United States is Osama bin-Laden's organization, Al-Qa'ida. An umbrella organization with an operational reach that stretches around the globe, Al-Qa'ida has been extremely successful at maintaining a high level of security and secrecy.
Despite the best efforts of several world powers, bin-Laden's organization has continued to support or facilitate acts of international terrorism. No nation has successfully penetrated the organization.
This is partly due to the fact that Al-Qa'ida operates as an umbrella group supporting a host of cells around the world. Instead of a centralized leadership, the terrorist organization develops autonomous cells capable of operating individually without a central command. Additionally, Al-Qa'ida coordinates operations and activities with various other terrorist organizations around the world. The hierarchy of the relationships remains unknown.
Bin Laden himsefl has repeatedly threatened acts of terrorism against the United States, and Al-Qa'ida was pinpointed in the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Those bombings, like the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., were well-coordinated and timed closely together.
Bin Laden, a Saudi, has operated from Afghanistan for several years. The Taliban, a radical Muslim authority that rules most of Afghanistan, has denied responsibility for the attacks on New York and Washington.
But Al-Qa'ida tops the list of suspects for two reasons. First, attacks of such magnitude suggest an organization with large operational capabilities and well-developed infrastructure. Al-Qa'ida is the only known terrorist organization who meets both descriptions.
Also, its coordination with other militant groups gives Al-Qa'ida access to commanders with years of experience in everything from bomb-making to suicide attacks. Leaders and cell commanders have gained experience in conflicts ranging from the Afghan war to Chechnya, Kashmir and other parts of India, the Middle East conflict, the guerrilla war in Algeria and Islamic uprisings in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Long before devastation struck the nation's power centers, Washington placed bin Laden on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List, put a $5 million bounty on his head and bombed both his headquarters and training camps.
But nothing the United States has done has brought the man, arguably the world’s most sought-after criminal, to justice. Instead, the frantic tactics revealed how desperate Washington has been to catch bin Laden. The reason U.S. agencies have not tried to snatch him is that they have no way of knowing where he is.
During the past nine years, the U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence communities have fixated on bin Laden as the prime source of anti-American Islamic terrorism. Bin Laden struck the first blow. In 1996 he issued his now infamous fatwa -- a religious edict -- calling for all Muslims to strike at American targets wherever possible. But bin Laden did not merely issue inflammatory statements; he also created anti-American organizations such as Al-Qa’ida and the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders.
Al-Qa’ida, “The Base,” is a quasi-militant organization whose goal is to unite Islamic terrorist organizations and eliminate Western influence from the Islamic world. Bin Laden himself funded and trained Islamic fighters to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan, and he claimed responsibility for training Muslims to attack U.S. forces in Somalia. He also praised the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
Following the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa, the Clinton administration retaliated against their prime suspect. Cruise missiles struck bin Laden’s headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan as well as a chemical factory in Sudan – businesses indirectly and poorly linked to bin Laden. In addition, the United States sought and won international sanctions and used every other means of political pressure against the Taliban in an attempt to force his extradition.
Leading up to the attacks on U.S. soil, Washington appeared to have a string of intelligence successes. Not able to capture bin Laden himself, the United States worked diligently to arrest or question his known associates. There have been useful leads. In 1998, a significant player in bin Laden’s organization was captured and his computer confiscated. On another occasion, the United States discovered a CD-ROM terrorist manual with links to bin Laden. In December 1998, a number of terrorist cells allegedly sponsored by bin Laden were rounded up in Jordan.
The general impression has been that the U.S. government has large amounts of intelligence on bin Laden, and that Taliban intransigence is the only reason he is not in custody.
In fact, it is most likely just the opposite. Bin Laden is the one enemy in U.S. history that the intelligence community knows the least about. During the Cold War, U.S. intelligence knew what Soviet nuclear mission controllers ate for breakfast every morning. With bin Laden, the information void is deafening. The U.S. government has limited useful and current intelligence on bin Laden -- such as organizational structure, key leaders, current surveillance and operational planning or logistical and transportation resources -- making it difficult if not impossible to seize him.
Al-Qa’ida is at best a loosely affiliated organization that is highly compartmentalized. Each arrest or defection is quickly isolated and the organization redirects its resources. Knowing the United States and its newfound terrorist allies are watching and listening, Al-Qa’ida has likely turned to low-tech methods of communication, transportation and financial transactions, such as pack mules and couriers, which further complicate Washington’s intelligence-gathering efforts.
This dearth of information has created an almost paranoid U.S. counterterrorism community, desperately seeking information from any source. This situation has caused the United States to gamble with its alliances. On every U.S. bilateral agenda in the past two years, counterterrorism cooperation against bin Laden has emerged as a critical issue. Most recently the United States has entered into counterterrorism cooperation agreements and agreed to share sensitive information with former adversaries, such India and Russia, for the sole purpose of learning anything regarding bin Laden.
No evidence has emerged that link Al-Qa'ida or bin Laden directly to the attacks on New York and Washington. Given the immensity and apparent coordination of Tuesday's events, however, logic dictates that this could not have been the act of a lone militant group. Instead, everything points to a well-established, well-funded and technically sophisticated international organization.