Analysis: Al-Qaida, back with a vengeance?

WASHINGTON, July 13 (UPI) -- U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the al-Qaida terrorist network is still a potent enemy despite an all-out war waged against it almost everywhere in the world by the United States.

The report, called a National Intelligence Estimate, stipulates that the terrorist group has actually grown beyond the point where it was on Sept. 11, 2001, gaining more recruits and sympathizers in a number of countries.

It is further believed al-Qaida's chief, Osama bin Laden, has been able to rebuild his organization after suffering devastating setbacks in the opening weeks of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. At the time, bin Laden was forced to flee his refuge in Taliban-held Afghanistan.

But since then, al-Qaida has proven particularly apt in recruiting followers in the developing world, such as in parts of Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Pakistan.

Pakistan, and in particular the areas of the Northwest Frontier bordering Afghanistan, is reported to offer a safe haven to bin Laden and his disciples, adding to the long list of problems Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf faces with the extremists in his country.

Indeed, some intelligence sources believe bin Laden is living in Pakistan, enjoying the protection of local tribesmen in the region straddling the Afghan border. It is also believed that it is from these remote parts of Pakistan that bin Laden and his deputy, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, are beginning to actively direct terrorist operations in several parts of the world.

Following the bloody confrontation between Pakistan's armed forces and a group of extremist Islamist scholars and students who held out in Islamabad's Red Mosque and the adjoining madrassa, or Koranic school, for more than a week, leaving more than 100 dead, al-Zawahiri called for Muslims around the world to seek revenge for the killings.

But al-Qaida is not only making headway in the developing world; the terrorist organization is finding it just as easy to recruit supporters and imitators in the developed world. That much was demonstrated by the attacks on the London Underground and a London bus on July 7, 2005, that left more than 50 people dead.

Or, as was more recently demonstrated by a suspected gang of Muslim Indian and Arab doctors, when they tried to detonate explosives in London and Glasgow a few weeks ago.

Al-Qaida's progress has been outlined in the National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, which is compiled for the president of the United States and the Congress by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. The analysis produced for an NIE comprises the highest-level intelligence in the community.

The classified report describes bin Laden's operation as "the most potent terrorist threat to U.S. national security."

Analysts believe that since fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of the U.S. invasion, al-Qaida has had time to recuperate and regroup and is now in a position to strike at the United States again.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board earlier this week that he believed "we are entering a period this summer of increased risk." Chertoff said his comments were not based on any specific intelligence, but rather on a "gut feeling."

Some intelligence sources, however, say they are picking up an increase in "chatter" on the Internet and from telephone intercepts along the same levels in the period immediately preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon just outside Washington.

However, government officials say they are unaware of specific or credible threats of an imminent attack on U.S. soil.

Nevertheless, since the aborted attacks by would-be suspected Islamist terrorists in London and Glasgow two weeks ago, U.S. authorities have urged extra vigilance in the United States. A number of factors continue to attract the ire of Islamist fanatics who want to target the United States: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the unfettered and preferential support the U.S. continues to afford Israel and what is often regarded by the Muslim world as Washington's two-tier policy when it comes to dealing with the Middle East issue.

Still, despite the ongoing threats, President George W. Bush insists that the United States is safer today than it was the day after Sept. 11, 2001. This contradicts what his military and intelligence people are saying.

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(e-mail: claude@upi.com)