July 21, 2005
Another terrorist attack in London. Is this what Self-Service Jihad all about?
by Liza Sabater
The BBC has called these "minor explosions", given only one person was hurt: BBC NEWS | UK | London blasts cause chaos on Tube.
I don't know, but 3 explosions that hit 3 underground stations and a bus? That is not a minor incident at all.
But let's take this a bit further. We know of England and "The Troubles" wrought to them by the IRA. With the IRA, I guess they could easily identify a core group of potential attackers; but with this new wave of terrorism, it is not so easy to really identify who could be the enemy.
Asia Times Online :: Self-service jihad
Abdallah Rami, another Moroccan expert, says there's one thing more important than the rush towards the Iraqi training ground and its wealth of information regarding urban warfare, clandestine networks and the privatization of means of mass destruction. Even more powerful, Rami says, is the appeal of "individual jihad": "Thanks to the Internet, an individual may become radical, acquire a terrorist education and prepare and execute an attack all by himself, without ever being in contact with al-Qaeda." This is what self-service jihad is all about.The moderate Sunni Arab world could not but panic. The spread of self-service jihad has led major Arab-language media like al-Hayat and Asharq al-Awsat to start debating "Islamo-fascism". But the debate would be more profitable if it concentrated on al-Qaeda's foreign policy. Just like Washington neo-conservatives, al-Qaeda seems to be engaged in regime change - fighting to place rulers, especially in the Arab world, who do not clash with its political ambitions, even if such leaders don't subscribe to al-Qaeda's worldview.
Contrary to the official line of both the George W Bush and Tony Blair governments, it's not hatred of Western values and freedom that drives the Salafi-jihadis. This is a fight for political power. Al-Qaeda is profiting immensely from the fact that average, moderate Muslims in the Middle East as well as in Europe have become so enraged by the excesses of the US imperial adventure in Iraq that for them the only counter-measure is to become a jihadi.
And this, hot on the heels of Boston Globe | Study cites seeds of terror in Iraq : War radicalized most, probes find
"The terrorists know that the outcome [in Iraq] will leave them emboldened or defeated," Bush said in his nationally televised address on the war at Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month. "So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction." The US military is fighting the terrorists in Iraq, he repeated this month, "so we do not have to face them here at home."However, interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.
A separate Israeli analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, "the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."
"Only a few were involved in past Islamic insurgencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya," the Israeli study says. Out of the 154 fighters analyzed, only a handful had past associations with terrorism, including six who had fathers who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, said the report, compiled by the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel.
American intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, and terrorism specialists paint a similar portrait of the suicide bombers wreaking havoc in Iraq: Prior to the Iraq war, they were not Islamic extremists seeking to attack the United States, as Al Qaeda did four years ago, but are part of a new generation of terrorists responding to calls to defend their fellow Muslims from "crusaders" and "infidels."
"The president is right that Iraq is a main front in the war on terrorism, but this is a front we created," said Peter Bergen, a terrorism specialist at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, a Washington think tank.
When I first heard of the term "endeless war", I immediately branded it as pinko-leftist whine-speak. I don't anymore. When I'm reading Pat Buchanan and agreeing with him, Mr. Culture of Death, you know we have a serious international phenomenon unraveling before our very eyes.
Posted by Liza Sabater in Empire, Extremists, Great Britain, Terrorism, War
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