WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- The shocking legacy of the Western response to Sept. 11, 2001 is the declining cost of Islamist terror activity. The invasion of Afghanistan pulverized al-Qaida -- at the time a small, highly integrated armed organization with a very limited international following. However, the war in Iraq made it possible that from its ashes rose al-Qaidism, the new anti-imperialist ideology which has, in turn, fostered a new, cheaper form of terrorism.
The presence of Coalition forces on Muslim soil gave strength to Osama bin Laden's analysis that Islam had come under attack from the "new Crusaders." The prolonged occupation of Iraq has globalize the sense of shame of the Iraqis to the extent that today a growing number of Muslims across the world share their humiliation. Both in the West and in the East, these phenomena have fostered the birth of an international army of jihadists.
The Jihadist movement is composed of Muslims, some born in the West, who, under the banner of al-Qaidism, are eager to battle against the "new imperialist Crusaders". Unlike in the past, this new generation of jihadists is home grown and self-funded.
Today al-Qaidism is engaging the West in a fierce ideological battle, a clash between two visions of the world reminiscent of the struggle between capitalism and communism during the Cold War. Militarily the new conflict is asymmetrical warfare, involving guerrilla and terrorist tactics against the strongest army in the world, the United States. Economically and financially the disparities between the two contenders are also enormous. Yet, on the cost side the gap is closing.
The cost-benefit analysis of terrorist attacks carried out before and after Sept. 11, 2001 shows alarming signs that, as times goes by, Islamist terrorism is becoming less costly and more effective. The opposite is true for the war on terror, as sadly shown by the tragedy of New Orleans, a city which since 2003 saw funds authorized for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project diverted to pay for the war in Iraq. This is a crucial factor. The Cold War ended with the victory of the West because the prolonged confrontation bankrupted the Soviet Union and not, as Osama bin Laden claims, because the Red Army in Afghanistan was defeated by U.S.- and Saudi-sponsored mujahedin.
The most recent United Nations report on sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaida stated that while the November 1998 twin truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania cost al-Qaida less than $50,000, Sept. 11, 2001 cost $500,000. This simple fact does not imply that terror activity became less cost-effective; in fact the opposite is true. 231 people died in the two embassy bombings while almost 3,000 died during Sept. 11, 2001. The cost of reconstruction of the U.S. embassies was a fraction of the $2 trillion estimated reconstruction cost and losses produced by Sept. 11, 2001.
While Sept. 11, 2001 may still be the most cost-effective terror operation in history, it is not a benchmark for the current Jihadist activity because it was a transnational attack, indeed the last one of its kind carried out by an Islamist armed organization.
Transnational attacks imply movement of people and money cross-border; therefore they are, by definition, more expensive than national terror operations. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the disintegration of al-Qaida and its mutation into a global anti-imperialist ideology has altered the global terror landscape; this is today characterized by the activity of national, underground armed organizations.
These groups do not have any direct contact with al-Qaida; what links them to Osama bin Laden is al Qaidism. Under the banner of the new creed, they have funded, planned, organized and executed all post-Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Of all post-Sept. 11, 2001 operations, only the Bali bombing, in October 2002, was partly funded by al-Qaida, but the money had been transferred before Sept. 11, 2001. The cost, estimated at $50,000, is the highest to date for a domestic terrorist operation. The human and economic cost for Indonesia was enormous: 202 people, many of whom were tourists, died inside the Bali nightclub; the Indonesia stock market crashed and the Bali tourist economy, which contributed about 5% of the country's GDP, came to a halt. Overall, the attack resulted in a 2 percent drop in Indonesian GDP for 2002.
The next major terrorist attack came in November 2003, in Istanbul; it cost less than $40,000 and was a small scale replica of Sept. 11, 2001. Four suicide truck bombings hit four different targets, killing 62 people. The economic consequences for the Turkish economy were very serious: the attack reversed the country's slow economic recovery and caused a capital outflow by Western investors. The attack was locally funded, so it cost nothing to al-Qaida yet it has been praised by Osama bin Laden and is regarded as part of the overall conflict between the West and al Qaidism.
Economically and financially, the transition from al-Qaida to al Qaidism has lowered the cost of Islamist terrorism. Not only are national attacks cheaper to execute than transnational attacks but, by not requiring cross-border movements of people and funds, they are harder to track via the money trail. This explains the difficulties the British authorities have encountered in retracing the activities of the July 7 London suicide bombers.
The UN report on sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaida confirms that the transformation of al-Qaida into a "loose network of affiliated underground groups" who operate largely independently against local targets of their own choosing, using limited resources, actually makes central flows of money less relevant. It also stresses that the U.N. sanctions have been ineffective because they have addressed a set of circumstances that no longer apply.
The failure of the U.N. sanction contributed to the declining cost of terrorism as shown by the comparison of the expenditure of the Madrid, London and the Sharm el Skeikh bombings. The Madrid bombings killed 191 people and cost as little as $10,000, the London and Sharm el Skeikh attacks killed 55 and 88 people respectively and cost a fraction of this amount. All these operations were carried out by local, underground groups willing to emulate Sept. 11, 2001; the script is identical but the scale is much smaller, adapted to the modest finances available to the groups. Yet their socio-economic impact is enormous.
The most cost effective of non transnational attacks may well be those of London and Sharm el Skeikh. It appears that a third or more of London's annual $18 billion revenues from tourism alone could be lost in 2005. In Britain, the cost of lost business, reconstruction, insurance and security will run into several billion dollars. The Sharm el-Skeikh bombing is likely to inflict even more damage in proportion to Egypt's much smaller economy, which relies upon an annual $10 billion in tourism receipts.
Expenditure for terrorist activity is also falling in Iraq. Last November Osama bin Laden estimated that the weekly cost of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's insurgency was as little as $250,000. In sharp contrast, the cost of the war for American troops is rising. According to the last official figures, the America taxpayer has so far sustained a weekly cost of almost $1 billion.
Al-Zarqawi's low operating costs are due mainly to two factors: the ready availability of cheap weapons, ammunitions and explosive inside Iraq and the declining cost of suicide missions. While in the past, suicide bombers had to be indoctrinated and forged and their families financially compensated, today they are home-grown and self-funded and their families are often kept in the dark about it. The cost of suicide mission has never been so low; in Iraq is equivalent to the sum of the cost of the explosive and of the transportation to the targets.
The lesson from history is that conflicts presented as universal battles of ideas generally become wars of attrition, which are not necessarily won by the wealthiest contender but by the one who in the process does not go bankrupt. The Crusades are the most illuminating example of this principle. Although Western capitalism has vast resources at its disposal, they are not unlimited. In the coming months, the economic consequences of hurricane Katrina will illustrate this point.
With rising financial and human costs, sooner or later, the budget of the conflict will bite into Western living standards. At that point public opinion may well turn against Western leaders, as was the case of the Viet-Nam war. Sadly, if this happens, Osama bin Laden, will claim a second victory against a superpower.
--
(Loretta Napoleoni is an international terrorism expert and author of "Insurgent Iraq: al-Zarqawi and the new generation" and "Terror Inc: Tracing the dollars behind the terror network." She was Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and Rotary Scholar at the London School of Economics. She has worked as an economist and foreign correspondent for Italy's financial papers. As chairwoman of the countering terrorism financing group for the Club de Madrid, Loretta Napoleoni brought heads of state from around the world together to create a new strategy for combating the financing of terror networks. She was one of the few people to interview the Red Brigades in Italy after three decades of silence.)
--
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
