Military

DATE= 09/05/2002

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01186

TITLE= AL QAIDA REORGANIZING?

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: Is al-Qaida reorganizing? Next, On The Line.

Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for Osama bin Laden's terrorists. But al-Qaida is still a viable international terror network, operating in some sixty countries. Dutch officials arrested seven men at the beginning of September, accusing them of recruiting terrorists for al-Qaida. A draft United Nations report on al-Qaida's finances found that the terrorist network has built up its coffers with an infusion of tens of millions of dollars. According to the Washington Post, al-Qaida is continuing to sell heroin it stockpiled through years of controlling the Afghan drug trade. Al-Qaida reportedly has been buying gold with its drug money and shipping the bullion through Iran to hiding places in Sudan. C-N-N recently acquired video tapes made by al-Qaida of their operations in Afghanistan before the U-S-led coalition routed their hosts, the Taleban. The videos give some indication of al-Qaida capabilities and tactics. Among them is a video showing dogs being killed with poison gas. Is al-Qaida preparing to commit new atrocities? I'll ask my guests, Jonathan Tucker, a chemical and biological weapons specialist with the Monterey Institute; Danielle Pletka, vice president of defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute; and Edward Badolato, a former U-S Department of Energy official and terrorism expert.

Thank you. Welcome, and I'm glad you've joined me today.

Host: Edward Badolato, let me ask you first. The recent arrest in the Netherlands of men accused of being affiliated with al-Qaida, what were they accused of doing?

Badolato: Well, they were essentially accused of recruiting, and trying to build individual cells, by training, shipping, equipping, and paying these groups to become part of the shadowy al-Qaida network, in other parts of Europe, as well as the Netherlands. With this in mind, there's not a lot different than what is going on here in the United States, and other countries, where al-Qaida has not been completely wiped out.

Host: So this is ongoing activity. This is not activity that is specifically pegged to an investigation into activity before nine-eleven. This is ongoing recruiting activity that these men are accused of?

Badolato: That is what they have been charged with, and have been accused of doing as ongoing. It's not something which several years ago was suspected, and we dredged up some old charges. It's ongoing and happening now. And if we watch what is going on in the various strongholds of al-Qaida, and the radical Muslim groups in Europe, such as in Spain, and France, and Italy, and Germany, and so forth. This is an ongoing concern.

Host: Danielle Pletka, what about in the rest of Europe? Is there reason to believe that similar activities are ongoing in Europe, recruitment activities? Or is it just cells that are still in place?

Pletka: I think al-Qaida remains as active as it was before September 11th. I think that Europe has been a center for their recruitment. There are a lot of Muslims in Europe, there are a lot of Muslims with European citizenship that are active in the terrorist organizations. The same is true in the United States. Although we are being more vigilant right now, and the Europeans are being more vigilant, the truth is that this is a terrorist organization with an ongoing agenda and the finances that they need to fund the terrorist activities.

Host: Is there anything you see beyond the Netherlands, in Europe per se, to suggest ongoing activities?

Pletka: We saw arrests in Germany. There are activities ongoing, clearly, in England as well. I think that there are problems throughout Europe. We're not always going to see things on the front pages of the newspapers. There aren't always arrests every day. But I think there are problems, as you said in your introduction, in sixty different countries, and possibly more. We're just not going to be seeing it every single day.

Host: Jonathan Tucker, let's talk a little bit about what al-Qaida might be up to, if they are still able to do it. And some indication of this might be in the tapes that C-N-N acquired, and that C-B-S also acquired, these same tapes from Afghanistan. You've looked closely at those tapes. Tell us a little bit about where those tapes came from, and what's on the tapes.

Tucker: C-N-N has not revealed the source of the tapes. They've been very secretive about that. But we do know that they [the tapes] originated in Afghanistan, and they date from before September 11th. So these are activities that took place roughly a year ago, if not longer ago. We have to take that into consideration when we assess their technical capabilities. They could very well have improved their capabilities over the ensuing year. But the most shocking tape, the one that got the most attention, showed a series of three dogs being gassed with some kind of poison chemical warfare agent. There is some dispute over what that agent might be. I personally think it was hydrogen cyanide, produced with a very simple technique of mixing two ingredients, probably a salt of sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide, mixed together with sulfuric acid to produce hydrogen cyanide gas. It's a very simple, crude technology, but an effective one. There was no evidence in the video of "weaponization." The terrorists simply mixed the ingredients, poured the solution onto the floor of the room, and the material fumed and eventually exposed the dog to a lethal concentration, after which the dog collapsed, began to convulse, and ultimately die. A very graphic image. I think we have to view this as at least an effort to acquire a chemical weapons capability, but one that has not yet achieved its objective, which is a "weaponized" capability, meaning not only the agent, but a means of delivery.

Host: Now, this crude cyanide gas, as you believe it to be - how lethal is it in the condition they have it in, on that video? How lethal would it be in a terrorist attack, as opposed to in a closed-in room?

Tucker: The thing about hydrogen cyanide is that it's an extremely volatile gas that will dissipate rapidly in an open area. So it would be effective in a small, enclosed space, but not in a large open area. In fact, hydrogen cyanide was developed as chemical weapon in World War One, but it was considered to be of limited effectiveness, compared to other agents because of its extreme volatility. So the terrorists would have to deliver the agent probably in an enclosed space, let's say, a subway station, or some other closed area. They would have to have some means of combining these chemicals, or otherwise delivering the agents effectively. And there was no evidence on the video -- that was, of course, made more than a year ago - that they had achieved that level of sophistication.

Host: Edward Badolato, in the first attack on the World Trade Center [back in 1993], there seems to have been some effort in the bomb that was set off there to try to spread cyanide as well. Is this some indication of a continued effort to develop weapons of mass destruction of a chemical weapons variety by these terrorists?

Badolato: All indications are that that is correct, that there is interest. I think individuals who study this on a daily basis will concur that they are looking at greater ways to cause mass destruction. Those bombs, and others which they have put together -- dating back before 1993, for example - they've looked very hard at ways to maximize the explosive effect, to increase the harm and the damage that it can do. It's something which. not allowing them to function and to operate and do these types of technical improvements in bombs and so forth. We can expect them to do various types of chemical inserts and additives to their bombings.

Tucker: I'd like to jump in on that. There's actually no compelling evidence that the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing actually put cyanide into the bomb. That came out during the trial - the judge made that allegation. But the F-B-I did not find compelling evidence. There was an intention on the part of Ramzi Yousef, who was the ringleader of that particular attack, to do something like that, to incorporate cyanide into the bomb. But apparently he did not have the financial resources to acquire enough cyanide. So even though there was the apparent intention to incorporate cyanide into the bomb, there's no evidence, on the basis of forensic evidence, that they actually did so.

Host: Danielle Pletka, to date the most gruesome example of chemical weapons being used in a terrorist attack are not related to al-Qaida but rather the [Aum] Shrinrikyo [a Japanese cult and terror organization] attack in the Tokyo subway. What did terrorism experts learn from that attack that is instructing how their trying to keep al-Qaida from developing this kind of capability?

Pletka: I guess I would step back for a second, Eric, and say that rather than the Aum Shrinrikyo attack, probably the Iraqi attacks on Halabja, on the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, were more gruesome. People think that more than one-hundred thousand people died. Now, that was partly through normal bombing. There were also chemical attacks. There were clearly chemical attacks. In fact, there is a lot of photographic evidence of that. One of the things we've learned is that it isn't that easy for a terrorist organization to actually deliver chemical weapons. That's why its so important to understand that the "weaponization" issue is what's key for them. Gassing a bunch of dogs in a room, although its terrifying and makes good television, isn't very effective from the standpoint of terrorism, the object of which is to terrorize the population to obtain a political end. Now, when you talk about a government like Iraq, which did arguably "weaponize" chemical weapons, then what you have is the added danger of a relationship between a terrorist organization and a government that has that kind of knowledge. I think that's what we really worry about, is that the kind of knowledge that a government like Iraq has in "weaponizing" chemical and even biological weapons could be passed on to a group like al Qaida, which is so interested in trying to terrorize people in every way it knows how.

Host: Jonathan Tucker, is the real risk with chemical weapons, that al-Qaida would get their hands on it from a state agent?

Tucker: Well, they would need the know-how to "weaponize" and deliver these agents effectively. A chemical weapon is more than just a toxic chemical. There has to be some means of efficient dissemination over a large area, in order to inflict significant casualties. So they would either need the assistance of a state sponsor, or they would need to recruit scientists who had worked in a state-level program and had mastered this technology, which is not widely available and is quite sophisticated. So there is a possibility of, let's say, a renegade scientist from the former Soviet Union, or some other part of the world with a developed chemical weapons program, being recruited by an affluent resourceful terrorist organization. We do know, in the case of Aum Shrinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released Sarin [a nerve agent] on the Tokyo subway in March of 1995, that they had obtained some of their know-how from the Soviet Union. In fact, the cult had large numbers of adherents in Russia and recruited people with technical expertise in Russia, as well as Japan.

Host: One of the things, Jonathan Tucker, that you've returned to a couple of times here is issue of financial resources, both in the original World Trade Center attack - the ability to get the money for a cyanide attack - and then also in obtaining the expertise. Let's look a little bit at a draft report from the U-N monitoring group on al-Qaida, looking at its finances. This draft report says that "al-Qaida continues to have access to considerable financial and other economic resources. Al-Qaida is by all accounts fit and well and poised to strike again at its leisure."

Edward Badolato, is that overly grim assessment, or is that an accurate assessment of the financial health of al-Qaida?

Badolato: Al-Qaida had very good financial support prior to nine-eleven. We knew that. A lot of the money was coming in from various contributors - Saudi Arabia and other Arab states were contributing. They had, in conjunction with the Taleban, a capability to collect taxes and to also sell drugs in the raw form out of Afghanistan. That is a big, big money maker. Consequently, they had a lot of these sources of finance. After things started to look grim for the Taleban, as the U-S was building up, caches of heroin, even opium were stashed in alleged safe areas in preparation for using that, moving that, onto the open drug market. Some of that has taken place, and a lot of their largesse has been converted into gold. We see the recent stories about the transmission of gold out of Afghanistan cycling through the U-A-E [United Arab Emirates] and some other Gulf states, and Iran, and ending up over in Sudan.

Host: Dani Pletka, al-Qaida, according to these stories, moving gold bullion - this isn't a particularly safe way to move resources and money. There were reports taken from al-Qaida laptop computers that were acquired by the Wall Street Journal, and other records that have been obtained, showing that even well before nine-eleven that it wasn't always easy for al-Qaida to keep all of its members from dipping into the till. How is al-Qaida's financial health at this point? Has the war on terrorism made it harder for them to move this money, or are they moving it just as easily, or is it now easier for people to, you know, sort of disappear with some of this money?

Pletka: I think part of the problem with going after the finances is that a lot of places, like Sudan, have fairly loosey-goosey financial systems. The United Arab Emirates, which was another one of those, along with Iran, through which they brought gold, has been a traditional problem. An enormous amount of smuggling throughout the [Persian] Gulf goes through the U-A-E, and although they've clamped down a little bit on their banking system, and on the "hawala" system of transferring money -- which leaves really no records -- it's an almost impossible task. Gold is difficult to transport, yes, it's not like sending money by wire. On the other hand, it's easier to keep once you have it, and it is reliable from the standpoint of the terrorists. But if you've looked at the list of the entities that were frozen by the United Nations, and by the United States, for being involved with terrorist financing, you see things like the "Honey Shop" on the equivalent of Elm and Main in the middle of Sana'a, Yemen, you have tiny little fronts all over the place. There's no way that we can plug this hole. We can put a chill in the atmosphere for transferring money, but that's all we can do. We can never hope to shut off the spigot entirely.

Host: Where does that leave the efforts to shut down al-Qaida financing?

Pletka: Terrorism doesn't cost a lot of money. The September 11th operation didn't cost a lot of money. Osama bin Laden, by himself, has much more money than is required for several spectacular terrorist operations. Although it's important for us to go after the money, ultimately the money also leads us to individuals. And it's the individuals and the planning and the movement of people that is far more important, ultimately, than just getting the cash.

Host: Jonathan Tucker, Danielle Pletka talks about the movement of people, and a number of newspaper stories have reported recently that there are senior al-Qaida officials in Iran right now. How credible are those reports, and does it raise the question of whether Iran, which has its own weapons of mass destruction program, that there's any threat of a nexus there?

Tucker: Well, I don't think we have clear evidence anywhere of state sponsored terrorism, or of a nexus between a state sponsor and al-Qaida. This is a possibility that we have to be concerned about. But I think the evidence, to date, is very slim. We obviously need to be concerned about that possibility. So, at least from my perspective, I don't think there's an airtight case for Iran's support for al-Qaida. But perhaps others would disagree.

Pletka: Well, I think you [Tucker] make a fine point, which is that Iranian state sponsorship of al-Qaida doesn't exist. On the other hand, they have some shared interests. And there's absolutely no question that we have ample evidence that al-Qaida officials went into Iran from Afghanistan -- when we began the operation there -- that some have remained in Iran, and that the Iranians see that they have an interest in at least providing shelter, and possibly having some idea what these people [al-Qaida officials] are up to. But that perfect nexus of Iranian operational support for al-Qaida's activities - I don't think anybody has seen that. I don't think that anybody has alleged that yet either. But it could happen, and it's something very dangerous.

Host: Edward Badolato, whether its Iran or elsewhere, is there reason to have any idea where al-Qaida is being organized out of at this point, or are cells just operating on their own? How much organization is there for al-Qaida right now worldwide?

Badolato: The model with which al-Qaida was formed was one of a very loose control in relationship. It's probably more like franchising than a "top down" organization, as we would know in a corporate sense. With the de-facto decapitation of al-Qaida, at least in Afghanistan, we have groups and cells which are very quiet, in various parts of the world, but still functioning and capable of carrying out long term missions and carrying out long-term activities. According to the debriefings and the intelligence reports that we are getting from the debriefings of prisoners and other informants - what we're reading and seeing in our intelligence is that these individuals have various missions and things which they are going to carry out without Osama bin Laden giving day-to-day orders on how, and who, and what, and so forth.

Host: Well, I hope we won't have to come back and talk about the success of any of those missions, but we will certainly be keeping an eye on the efforts that al-Qaida is making.

I'm afraid that we don't have any more time for today. I've been joined today by Jonathan Tucker of the Monterey Institute, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, and terrorism expert Edward Badolato.

For On The Line, I'm Eric Felten.