28 April 2006
Study Finds War on Terror Still in Early Stages as Enemy Adapts
Says al-Qaida damaged, but finding new ways to create extremist violence
By Rebecca Ford Mitchell
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The United States and its partners are still in the first phase of a long war against an enemy skilled at adapting to counterterrorist tactics, conclude the authors of Country Reports on Terrorism 2005.
“We will probably go through several more cycles of action/reaction before the war’s outcome is no longer in doubt,” according to the report, released April 28.
The State Department’s annual assessment of the global terrorist threat devotes a section to assessing the war against extremist violence by focusing primarily on al-Qaida and its affiliates to analyze developments and identify trends.
Ambassador Henry Crumpton, head of the counterterrorism office that produced the report, says such an analysis is helpful because “this is not the kind of war where you can measure success with conventional numbers or aspire for a single, decisive battle that will break the enemy’s will, or hope for a signed peace accord to mark our victory.”
Collaborative efforts by the world community have succeeded in degrading the ability of al-Qaida’s senior leadership to mount terrorist campaigns, the report states. However, in its search for ways to adapt to a more restrictive operating environment, the leadership has increased its propaganda activity to develop stronger ideological ties with groups like al-Qaida in Iraq and other affiliates.
In the al-Qaida network, the report notes the following trends:
• Increase in suicide bombings;
• Development of smaller, more loosely organized terrorist groups “that are less capable but also less predictable”;
• Greater capacity for terrorist acts by local residents with foreign ties; and
• Growth in the strategic networks that help bring foreign terrorists into Iraq, the key front in the War on Terror.
The new generation of terrorists is more difficult to identify, categorize or penetrate, the report says, because it can range from self-selected and self-radicalized groups sharing a specific ideology, as in a small, insular “band of brothers” to adherents of radical ideas gleaned from the Internet, with training received in cyberspace, who gather to conspire with their “cell” through chatrooms.
The report also deals extensively with the connection between terrorism and the attacks in Iraq that are intended to prevent that country from developing a democratic society. Al-Qaida is using the presence of coalition forces in Iraq – there to protect the young democracy taking root – “to influence and radicalize Muslim public opinion worldwide and as a magnet to draw in as many recruits as possible.”
The terrorist are committed to using violence to force a civil war and cause the legitimately elected Iraqi government to fail so that they can establish a theocratic state from which to operate, just as they had done under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
The report also contains assessment of terrorist activities in each country, the names of groups designated as terrorist organizations and the countries listed as state sponsors of terrorism.
The full text of the new report is available on the State Department Web site.
An annex (PDF, 8 pages) compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, a separate entity, provides statistics for the report.
For more information, see Response to Terrorism.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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