Al-Ahram Weekly | International

		21 - 27 November 2002 Issue No. 613 International	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

The big bad wolf
Osama Bin Laden's latest threat against America and its allies has renewed debate over the Bush administration's priorities. Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington

While United States President George Bush was still in a celebratory mood after winning mid-term congressional elections and gaining a tough UN resolution against Iraq, the latest statement by Al-Qa'eda leader Osama Bin Laden last week came as somewhat of an embarrassment.
The four-minute audio tape was the clearest indication so far that America's most wanted man remains alive, refuting claims by some senior US intelligence officials that he might have been killed in the heavy bombing of the Tora Bora mountains in Eastern Afghanistan a year ago.
In his message, Bin Laden praised recent terrorist attacks against Australian tourists in Bali, Indonesia; the takeover of a theatre in Moscow by Chechen rebels; shooting sprees against US soldiers in Kuwait; and the killing of a US diplomat in Jordan. Bin Laden also threatened more attacks, not just against America but also its closest allies.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said that Bin Laden's tape indicated that the US "war on terror" was faltering. He also seemed unconvinced with the argument made by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the "war against terror" was much wider in scope than merely attempting to get Bin Laden and his closest aides. Daschle said that as long as Bin Laden remained at large, the US cannot claim success in its "war against terror". "We can't find Bin Laden, we haven't made real progress in finding key elements of Al- Qa'eda. They continue to be as great a threat today as they were one and a half years ago. So by what measure can we claim to be successful so far?" Daschle asked.
Democratic Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also charged that the Bush administration had been distracted from the "war against terror" by focusing on the war against Iraq. "They are so focused on Iraq that they aren't paying adequate attention to the war on terror," he said. He added that US intelligence agencies should take action against so-called terrorist threats before considering any military action against Iraq.
In response, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters in a briefing on Friday that President Bush did not start his day with Iraq, but with developments in the war against terror.
Indeed, a day after Bin Laden's tape was aired by the Qatari satellite television channel, Al-Jazeera, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning to 18,000 law enforcement agencies in four major cities, warning of a possible terrorist attack against hospitals. The warning was not supposed to go public, FBI officials said, but it was nearly impossible to keep it a secret with heightened security measures at hospitals in Washington DC, San Francisco, Houston and Chicago.
Barely 24 hours later, the FBI issued an even stronger alert, this time warning of "spectacular attacks" against the US. "In selecting its next targets, sources suggest Al- Qa'eda may favour spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the American economy and maximum psychological trauma. The highest priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum and nuclear sectors, as well as significant national landmarks," the FBI said.
The issuing of this warning coincided with the execution of a Pakistani national, Mir Aimal Kansi, who was convicted of killing two Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees outside the agency's headquarters in 1993. Security officials fear reprisals in reaction to Kansi's execution.
With the issuance of its latest warning, the FBI was apparently trying to counter claims that it was not doing enough to fight terrorism. However, this latest alert seems to have backfired. White House sources were quoted as criticising the FBI for rushing into releasing the warning without prior consultation. Some unnamed senior administration officials even went as far as contemplating the idea of creating a new domestic intelligence agency to deal specifically with terrorist threats, instead of leaving that job in the FBI's hands alone. Critics of the FBI said the security body was not up to the job of fighting terrorism, with the background of its officers being mainly related to law enforcement.
Following this, the FBI rushed to defend its record, listing the arrests it has made of "senior" Al-Qa'eda members, both within and outside of the US.
It is within this context that the FBI announced the arrest of a senior Al-Qa'eda member, whose name remains unknown, on Friday. An Internet site known for its sympathy to Al-Qa'eda denied the arrest of any of its leaders, and challenged the US authorities to reveal his name. They said the news on the arrest was simply aimed at covering up America's failure in tracking down Al-Qa'eda's senior leaders, topped by Bin Laden.
On Sunday, US Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge played down the significance of the latest Al-Qa'eda threats. "There are no new threats, there are the same old conditions," he said in a series of interviews on US television. He also claimed that authorities were making "significant advances" against Al-Qa'eda following the arrest of 2,700 people around the world suspected of links to the group. Ridge also confirmed the report that a senior Al-Qa'eda leader had been arrested. While refusing to disclose his name, or where he was being held, Ridge referred to the man as "a highly placed operative within the Al-Qa'eda organisation".

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