NYTimes.com Article: Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda's Ranks, Report Says

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Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda's Ranks, Report Says

October 15, 2003
 By REUTERS





Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET

LONDON (Reuters) - War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al
Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group's will, the
International Institute for Strategic Studies said on
Wednesday in its annual report.

The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank's
annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance,
said Washington's assertions after the Iraq conflict that
it had turned the corner in the war on terror were
``over-confident.''

The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the
military capabilities of states and militant groups
worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the
U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that
has followed in Iraq.

Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the
country from ``ripening into a cause celebre for radical
Islamic terrorists,'' it concluded. ``Nation-building'' in
Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than
initially planned.

``On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a
potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and
discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to
support it,'' the report said.

``On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed
radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al
Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least
marginally, its operating capability,'' it said.

``The immediate effect of the war may have been to isolate
further al Qaeda from any potential state supporters while
also swelling its ranks and galvanizing its will.''

FAILED STATES

Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at
Britain's St Andrew's University, told Reuters the report's
findings would drive home the importance of rebuilding Iraq
and other conflict zones.

``Military planners and the law enforcement community are
fully aware of the consequences of failed states,'' he
said.

``I think it's probably worthwhile for politicians to keep
in mind our responsibility to provide sustained and long
term reconstruction in war-torn countries, so they don't
fly back into anarchy or become incubators of terrorism.''

Washington blames al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, for
the 2001 U.S. airliner hijack attacks which killed 3,044
people.

A crackdown had netted some al Qaeda leaders and deprived
al Qaeda of bases in Afghanistan. But it also ``impelled an
already highly decentralized and evasive international
terrorist network to become even more 'virtual' and protean
and, therefore, harder to identify and neutralize,'' the
IISS report said.

It said 18,000 veterans of al Qaeda's Afghan training camps
were still probably operating worldwide ``with recruitment
continuing and probably increasing following the war in
Iraq.''

Al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are mostly still at
large and continue to incite followers over the Internet
and through pronouncements on Arabic-language television.

Because of its extreme religious world view, al Qaeda
``cannot be tamed or controlled through political
compromise or conflict resolution,'' the report said.

But Western countries need to do more to reach out to
Muslim countries and their own Islamic minorities to
``eliminate the root causes of terrorism,'' especially
after the Iraq war ``almost certainly further alienated
Islam from the West.''

Efforts should be redoubled to resolve local conflicts,
such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so regional
radical groups such as Hamas do not fall into al Qaeda's
embrace, it said.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-iraq-balance.html?ex=1067269386&ei=1&en=d708d123d41c834d


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