9/11-ONE YEAR ON: It is difficult to pinpoint the modern terrorist, as intelligence agencies have discovered. Lara Marlowe reports on the worldwide hunt for al-Qaeda.
A UN report this month came to the chilling conclusion that "al-Qaeda is by all accounts 'fit and well' and poised to strike again at its leisure". Osama bin Laden's group has survived the bombardment of Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban, the freezing of $122 million in funds, the arrest of thousands of Islamists worldwide and the biggest manhunt in history.
In Germany alone, there are 72 separate investigations into individuals or groups suspected of participating in "international jihad". A half dozen trials are under way or about to start in Europe and the US, but only two men have been charged in connection with the atrocities of September 11th.
Al-Qaeda thrives; as "the base", the meaning of its Arabic name, and as a more amorphous source of inspiration for extremists in places as far-flung as the Philippines and Indonesia. Like the Hydra fought by Hercules in Greek mythology, every time a head is severed, two more seem to spring forth. Far from annihilating al-Qaeda, US strategy has scattered its adherents, making them harder to track and more unpredictable.
Yet the "war on terrorism" has succeeded, at least temporarily, in staving off large-scale attacks. Since September 11th, only one bombing, which claimed the lives of 21 people in Tunisia, is attributed with certainty to al-Qaeda by Western intelligence agencies.
Doubt about responsibility is part of al-Qaeda's power to unsettle. Was the assassination attempt against the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, on September 5th the work of bin Laden, or a disgruntled warlord? And the car bomb that killed more than 30 people in Kabul a few hours earlier? Was the suicide bomber who killed 11 Frenchmen in Karachi in May sent by al-Qaeda, or a Pakistani group, once removed? For Guillaume Dasquié, a leading French expert on al-Qaeda and co-author of Bin Laden; the Forbidden Truth, the truck-bombing outside a synagogue on the island of Djerba, off the Tunisian coast on April 11th, is the shape of things to come - a "freelance" suicide operation by an isolated individual with tenuous links to al-Qaeda.
"Al-Qaeda is not so much a network as a sphere of influence," Dasquié explains. "From time to time, elements far from the leadership make attacks that the group then takes responsibility for. It's not a structured, terrorist movement with a hierarchy and operatives working under orders. It's an aggregate of Islamist movements, each with its own agenda. Specific actions are used by the central organisation in its crusade."
The French "anti-terrorist" judge Jean-Francois Ricard agrees.
"We don't know if people receive orders from bin Laden. These groups are completely splintered. They're not structured. Four or five guys meet. Sometimes they disagree and one breaks away. Sometimes an emir decides to take action."
Emir, the Arabic word for prince, is the title given by extremist groups to their leaders.
Judge Ricard describes al-Qaeda as a series of concentric circles, centred in the Afghan-Pakistan tribal frontier zones; neighbouring Asian countries where Westerners are attacked; Chechnya, where several thousand Islamic activists are fighting; and Europe. Al-Qaeda members live in European capitals and move freely across international borders, he says.
"They are bilingual-lingual, educated, they dress well and nobody notices. They are fish in water."
Nizar Naouar, the 24-year-old Tunisian who immolated himself outside La Griba synagogue in Djerba, was not known as a fundamentalist or political activist. When he returned from abroad last year, he bought a second-hand lorry, equipped it with a 5,000-litre tank, which he filled with 40 bottles of liquid propane.
Tunisian secret police are notoriously thorough. Yet no one suspected that Naouar was an al-Qaeda follower who trained in a camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border and received $20,000 to finance his suicide operation.
Naouar stopped the truck in front of tourists outside the synagogue and pushed the detonator. Fourteen Germans, six Tunisians and a Frenchman died with him. Although Tunisia enjoys privileged relations with the EU, Tunisian police at first refused to give the victims' bodies to their embassies. The Tunisian regime claimed the synagogue bombing was an accident, so al-Qaeda took the rare step of naming its "martyr" in an Arab newspaper. In June, one of bin Laden's aides, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, praised Nizar Naouar for the attack "done in the name of al-Qaeda" on the Qatari television station Al-Jazira.
At first, diplomats assumed that the Tunisians wanted to protect their tourist industry. A more disturbing explanation emerged later. The Tunisian intelligence service was trying to hide the fact that it has been infiltrated by Islamists - a nightmare for Western agencies who must co-operate with "friendly" Muslim regimes. Mohamed Atef, the only bin Laden aide known to have been killed in last year's bombardment of Afghanistan, was a high-ranking Egyptian military intelligence officer.
And the Pakistani ISI (Inter Service Intelligence) is believed to be riddled with al-Qaeda and Taliban sympathisers.
President Bush and his Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld say they don't know if bin Laden is alive. Senator Bob Graham, who heads the US Senate's intelligence committee, said this summer that he had information indicating bin Laden was in the tribal zones, "probably on the Pakistani side". In the absence of sightings or communications intercepts, some weary US officers think bin Laden may have died in the bombing of Tora Bora last December.
A US ground offensive at Shah-e-Kot, southwest of Kabul, in March, produced no conclusive evidence of bin Laden's fate either. Also missing but presumed alive are Ayman Zawahiri, bin Laden's closest aide, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Khalid Shaikh Mohamed, the Kuwaiti suspected of involvement in the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993, as well as September 11th.
Bin Laden's survival is not essential to the continuation of al-Qaeda. Arab intelligence sources quoted by The Washington Post claim bin Laden's son, Saad (22), is being groomed to succeed him, and that two high-ranking al-Qaeda figures are planning attacks from Mashad and Zabol, Iranian cities near the border with Afghanistan. They are Saif Adel, an Egyptian on the FBI's "most wanted list", and Mahfouz Ould Walid, a Mauretanian whom the US mistakenly reported killed in eastern Afghanistan last January.
"We've become obsessed with bin Laden," says Judge Ricard, who has spent the past eight years investigating Islamist groups. "This problem will continue, with or without him."
It is difficult to gauge the seriousness of foiled attacks, and their links to al-Qaeda. When Kerim Chatty, the son of a Tunisian father and Swedish mother, attempted to board a Ryanair flight from Vasteras, Sweden, to Stansted on August 29th with a loaded pistol in his hand luggage, the incident was at first dismissed as an isolated act. But Chatty's case bears disturbing similarities to earlier al-Qaeda plots. Like Jose Padilla, the American arrested in Chicago in May on suspicion of attempting to build a radioactive bomb, Chatty converted to Islam while in prison. And like the September 11th hijackers, he attended flight school in the US.
Information gleaned by US interrogators from prisoners at Guantanamo reportedly enabled Moroccan counter-intelligence to arrest three Saudis at the end of May. The Saudis' "emir" was married to a Moroccan woman and had trained in Afghanistan. He planned to use speed boats loaded with explosives to blow up NATO ships in the Straits of Gibraltar.
Scarcely a week passes without arrests. In February, Italian police detained four Moroccans in possession of nine pounds of cyanide and a diagram of the water system in the US embassyin Rome. In addition to pre-September 11th videos of the World Trade Centre, four Islamists of Syrian origin, who were arrested in Spain in July, had detailed footage of New York airports, Hollywood studios, the Sears Towers in Chicago and the San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
Last month, four Moroccans were detained in Bologna as they videotaped the Basilica of San Petronio - considered a potential target because it contains a fresco showing the Prophet Mohamed naked. On August 30th, a US official said the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan - dozens of whose members trained in Afghanistan - was planning to attack the US embassy in Kirghizistan. Eight men arrested in five Dutch cities on August 30th have been charged with helping to recruit, house and finance al-Qaeda followers.
In a separate case in Holland, two Algerians and a Frenchman, who were arrested two days after September 11th, will go on trial this autumn for plotting to attack the US embassy in Paris and a US Air Force base believed to store nuclear bombs in northeastern Belgium.
A significant number of al-Qaeda recruits are converts to Islam, who arouse less suspicion because they look European and have Western names. The accused in Rotterdam include Jérôme Courtailler (28), a Frenchman. Courtailler's younger brother David, who also converted, has twice been imprisoned in France on suspicion of "terrorist affiliation".
French authorities opened an investigation into the Paris embassy plot the day before September 11th. It was allegedly planned by an Algerian named Djamel Beghal, arrested in Dubai in July 2001. Nizar Trabelsi, a former Tunisian football star imprisoned in Belgium, was to have carried out the suicide mission. Tarek Maaroufi, another Tunisian in Belgium, has been linked to the Paris embassy, the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud and the plot to bomb the Strasbourg Cathedral, for which five Algerians are now being tried in Germany.
Only one al-Qaeda leader, a Palestinian named Abu Zubaydah, has been captured in the past year, by FBI agents in Karachi in March. The arrest of Jose Padilla was attributed to information divulged by Abu Zubaydah.
Until this spring, al-Qaeda attacked Americans rather than Europeans. The Djerba synagogue bombing, and the explosion that killed 14 people, 11 of them French naval engineers, in Karachi on May 8th, jolted Europeans into realising they too are targets.
The modus operandi of the Karachi attack was the same as Djerba. A suicide bomber driving a Toyota Corolla packed with explosives pulled up alongside the defence workers' bus and detonated his payload. Tracing the car's engine number, investigators learned that the men who bought the car the previous day paid more than it was worth, and were not interested in registration papers. One of them had a dark bump on his forehead, from banging his head on the floor while praying. The trail stopped there.
French officials initially believed al-Qaeda staged the May 8th attack, but suspicion has since shifted to Pakistani extremist groups that support al-Qaeda but are distinct from it. Five of these groups were banned by President Pervez Musharraf last January, and are believed responsible for the murder of the US journalist Daniel Pearl as well as attacks on two churches, a Christian school and the US consulate, in which 28 people were killed.
Richard Reid, a Briton of Jamaican origin, was overpowered on a flight from Paris to Miami on December 22nd, 2001 as he tried to ignite explosives concealed in his shoes. Initially, Reid, like Kerim Chatty in Sweden, was thought to be a "nut case". But the investigation has linked him indirectly to one of the groups suspected in the Karachi attack.
Reid spent two weeks in Paris before boarding the flight to Miami. He paid cash for his airline ticket at a travel agency in the predominantly North African Paris neighbourhood of Barbès, and sent e-mails to Pakistan from a local cybercafe. The FBI found a clue in one of his pockets - a business card for a fast food restaurant at number 81, rue de Rochechouart. Next door, at number 83, French authorities found Ghulam-Mustafa Rama, 64, a Pakistani who is allegedly the representative in France of Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the banned Pakistani groups fighting for Kashmir's independence, and allied with al-Qaeda.
French police arrested seven Pakistanis from Barbès, including Rama, on April 16th, then released them. In June, after the Karachi attack, Rama was re-arrested and charged, along with two Frenchmen of Algerian origin in their 20s who were seen with Reid. Both young men fought in Kashmir after September 11th.
The chemical explosive in Reid's shoes, TATP (triacetone triperoxide), is considered the signature of al-Qaeda. Unlike plastic explosives used in the past, TATP is not stolen or bought but can be concocted in a hotel room. "It's like nitroglycerin, with terrible destructive power," says Judge Ricard.
Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian who was arrested in Washington State in December 1999, en route from Vancouver to Los Angeles, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport with TATP. When Judge Ricard studied the case, he realised that Western authorities faced unprecedented dangers.
"This new generation is older, better trained, sometimes university educated. Some of them spent several years in Afghanistan. Using products easily obtained in the West, Ressam knew how to make some of the most powerful chemical explosives in the world."
In the 1990s, the road to Afghanistan passed through "Londonistan". Almost all of the North African Arab and European Muslims who trained in al-Qaeda camps went first to Britain, where they were indoctrinated by a Palestinian cleric named Abu Qutada. "Abu Qutada is at the root of everything," says Judge Ricard. "From the beginning, for years, everyone attended his sermons." Every al-Qaeda attack first receives the approval of a religious leader, he explains.
Abu Qutada and his family disappeared last December. In July 2002, he was reported to be under house arrest in northern England. His role - and Britain's silence about him - are not the least of al-Qaeda's mysteries. Other European and US investigators complain of what they see as British laxity in dealing with Islamists.
"Certain countries think that expelling activists is a solution, but they just continue elsewhere," Judge Ricard says. "You cannot have a purely national vision of the problem. These people must be arrested and questioned. Evidence must be gathered."
The clearest picture of how an al-Qaeda cell functions comes from the case against Mounir Motassadeq, 28, the Moroccan charged in Germany on August 28th with being an accessory to murder on September 11th.
In 1996, Motassadeq was a witness to the will of Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker who crashed into the first of the Twin Towers and the leader of the Hamburg cell. The Moroccan also had power of attorney over a bank account belonging to Marwan Shehi, from the United Arab Emirates, who flew the second aircraft into the trade centre. It was Motassadeq who transferred funds for the hijackers' flight school tuition and living expenses in the US.
Motassadeq arrived in Hamburg in 1995, to study electrical engineering. The Hamburg cell began taking form the following year, at the instigation of Haidar Zammar, a German of Syrian origin now imprisoned in Syria. Zammar recruited Atta, who emerged as the group's emir because he was older and a strong organiser.
In interviews given before his arrest in November 2001, Motassadeq said he met Atta, Shehi and Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese who crashed into the woods in Pennsylvania, at the Al Quds mosque which they all attended in Hamburg. He admitted he went to the apartment where Atta lived with Said Bahaji and Ramzi Binalshibh, who are both still at large.
During the two years it took to plan the September 11th attacks, all seven of the Hamburg plotters travelled to Afghanistan for long stays. At a press conference, the prosecutor explained how the group operated.
"Besides sharing ideological and military training, the members of the cell co-ordinated with the international network on the details of the attack and the logistical support . . . All of the members of this cell shared the same religious convictions, an Islamic lifestyle, a feeling of being out of place in unfamiliar cultural surroundings. At the centre of this stood the hatred of world Jewry and the United States."
Three members of the Hamburg cell - Atta, Shehi and Jarrah - died on September 11th. Motassadeq's trial will start this year. But three others - Binalshibh, a Yemeni, Bahaji, a German of Moroccan origin, and Zakariya Essabar, a Moroccan - have vanished.
Thousands of stolen and fake passports, credit cards and machinery for forging documents and credit cards have been seized in raids across Europe. Al-Qaeda followers have no financial worries; a UN report says they've converted assets into gold and diamonds, and transferred bank deposits to Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
The followers of "international jihad" co-operate with "brothers" throughout the world. Not so, western intelligence agencies. "Everyone asks for improved co-operation between intelligence services," Guillaume Dasquié says. "It exists, but usually in one direction. No one collects all the information and shares it. So no one has an overall picture."
"A year after September 11th, international co-operation has not improved in proportion to the threat," Judge Ricard says. "Europe agreed on an international arrest warrant, but six months later, it isn't in practice. Requesting a search or a phone tap in another country ought to be simple, but it's not. Unless we resolve these things, al-Qaeda has a brilliant future."
US officials complain that the lack of border controls within the Schengen area, and a ban in some European countries on sharing information that could lead to capital punishment, have hampered investigations. But in an editorial last week, The Washington Post blamed US authorities. "It is not clear that the administration has a strategy for neutralising al-Qaeda's re-emerging tentacles," the Post warned.