Al Qaeda arrest significant but war on terrorism not over

SINGAPORE: US President George Bush will sleep easier knowing the mastermind of the September 11 attacks is behind bars.

But with Osama bin Laden still free and a war on Iraq likely to help his cause, the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed offers no opportunity for US counter terrorism operatives to relax.

“That’s fantastic!” exclaimed Bush when he heard Pakistani security agents had captured Mohammed in a pre-dawn raid at a house in Rawalpindi.

The momentum of his military build-up against Iraq suffered a double blow at the weekend when President Saddam Hussein began destroying his banned al-Samoud 2 missiles, strengthening the hand of anti-war advocates who say arms inspections are working, and when the parliament in Ankara rejected a motion to let US troops use Turkish bases and ports.

Opposition has stiffened across the world to Bush’s plan to attack Iraq, which Washington accuses of possessing weapons of mass destruction and of links to Al Qaeda. Europe is split from top to bottom over whether to back Bush.

There is little wonder, then, that US officials were jubilant at the arrest of Mohammed, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani ancestry believed to be about 37 years old. They hailed as an intelligence coup the capture of a man who terrorism experts say has been behind almost every anti-American attack carried out by Islamic militants in the past decade.

But analysts were less convinced that capturing the head of Al Qaeda’s military committee and its number-three leader would give Bush the boost he needs as he struggles to win international support to take on Iraq.

Clive Williams of the Australian National University noted that Washington had said it had about one-third of Al Qaeda’s top leadership in custody. “That means two-thirds are still out there,” Williams said. “By their own statements they admit that the organisation is substantially untouched at senior levels.”

A coup, but no death blow: What’s more, experts doubt Mohammed’s arrest will unlock the secrets of Al Qaeda. Devotion to the cause means the $25 million bounty on Bin Laden — and on Mohammed — has gone unclaimed.

“Given his key position and role, it would be very surprising if Mohammed does not know the general location of Osama bin Laden and his number two, Ayman Al Zawahiri,” said Husain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. “Whether he will turn them in is something we don’t know. The higher you are, the more devoted you are likely to be.”

For Williams, the arrest of Mohammed was a coup but nothing like a deathblow to Al Qaeda.

“This doesn’t affect Al Qaeda’s operational activities,” he said. “Some things will have to be aborted because of the knowledge he has, but they can make other arrangements.”

Terror experts said that if Mohammed did talk, he could give his interrogators erroneous information and thus spread fear in the West about attacks that were mere bluff.

“They win if they create fear and panic,” said Haqqani.

That has been the pattern with the arrests of other top operatives, including Abu Zubaydah, one of bins Laden’s top lieutenants, who was captured in Faisalabad in March 2002.

“Al Qaeda is a resilient organisation and someone will step in and take his place,” Williams said. “You can’t beat Al Qaeda by trying to crush it. You have to remove its popular support.”

A war on Iraq could achieve just the opposite by stirring anger in the Middle East against the United States and creating a breeding ground for a new generation of Al Qaeda recruits.

“This attack will be portrayed as an attack by the Great Satan on the Muslim people,” said Williams.

“An attack plays into Al Qaeda hands. If bin Laden were advising Bush he’d say ‘Attack Iraq’.”

Speed bumps: Williams said Bin Laden would use any attack to ensure common cause with Al Qaeda, portraying leaders in Pakistan and the Middle East — particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia — as U.S. puppets keeping their peoples in varying degrees of oppression.

“These arrests are just speed bumps along the road. They don’t lead to the outcome of the defeat of Al Qaeda,” he said. “Even if you take out bin Laden it wouldn’t kill Al Qaeda.

“What they (the Americans) are dealing with is a cause and an ideal, an idea and a vision, and you can’t overcome that by killing off individuals.”

For President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally of Bush in the war on terror, the arrest is particularly well timed.

It burnishes his credentials as an important partner when Islamabad has fallen from favour for allegedly backing attacks against India in disputed Kashmir.

Pakistan is also suspected of supplying nuclear technology to isolated North Korea — now locked in a mounting row over its nuclear ambitions with the United States.

And Pakistan’s will be one of the swing votes in the United Nations Security Council later this month when it debates a US-British resolution that would lead to war on Iraq.

“This is a balancing act by Pakistan,” said Haqqani. “They could try to balance domestic opinion by saying they are not American stooges and thus abstain. Or they could tell the United States ‘We are absolutely faithful’. “It could go either way,” he said. “But this arrest may increase their leverage.” Williams saw Musharraf in a tricky position.

“This will make Musharraf popular with the Americans, but more unpopular with the people of Pakistan.” —-Reuters

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