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Al-Qaida:  Murder Not So Anonymous

U.S. Intelligence sources confirm terroristists reporting back to Usama Bin Laden's Al-Qaida as they seize control of four U.S. commercial airliners thus establishing clear lines of communication to their controllers in the Mideast.

Using cell phone intercepts, sources report that the U.S. NSA has better than 90% confidence they not only know who has planned and caused execution of the terrorist events, but the aid and support of the country which provides homes to Bin Laden's organization.  Clearly, our sources could be embarking on a dis-information campaign intended to shift focus away from the real conspirators so that a strike against them will be all that more surprising, however, for now, we will run with what we are hearing.  The focus -- Al Qaida, number one on every terrorist experts list of contenders for the most infamous acts of terrorism in the history of the modern world.

Who are this band of terrorists who call themselves Al-Qaida?   Perhaps merchants, perhaps students, perhaps veterans of the Afghanistan wars.  Perhaps, like Bin Laden, these are people from the ranks of the priviliged Saudis, disappointed in the world events that so often effect the lives of those in the Mideast, and in the last two decades, dedicated to the destruction of the great Satan, the United States of America and her people.

Al-Qaida, whether merchant, cleric, secular, authority figures or students, have a common goal.  To bring down all Muslim nations who fail to practice rigid Islamic lifes, those failing to keep a truly Islamic nation.

According to the U.S. State Department's annual report on terrorism, (available on MILNET at  Patterns of Global Terrorism), Al-Qaida is characterized as:

"Established by Usama Bin Ladin about 1990 to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion. Helped finance, recruit, transport, and train Sunni Islamic extremists for the Afghan resistance. Current goal is to "reestablish the Muslim state" throughout the world. Works with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems "non-Islamic" and remove Westerners from Muslim countries. Issued statement under banner of "The World Islamic Front for Jihad Against The Jews and Crusaders" in February 1998, saying it was the duty of all Muslims to kill US citizens, civilian or military, and their allies everywhere. "  [emphasis added]

The problem is not Islam and the Muslim religion.  In fact the Islamic tenats appear to be 180 degress opposed to the kind of activiites Bin Laden and his home base Afghanistan engage in.  In consulting with Muslims from all parts of the Middle East, it appears that Al-Qaida, similar to other reactionary Islamic elements, have deluded themselves that not only do they take umberance over the Palestinian situtation, the U.S. support of Israel, and of course Israel's defense of their own security, as signs that a modern Satan wanders the land.  Thus invoking, and increasingly at every chance, the radical Islamic leaders declare a holy Jihad to remove the Satan from the face of the planet.

Does this mean the Muslim merchant in your town is ready to cut your throat?  Absolutely not.  My friend Al, a Muslim who fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq prior to the Gulf War, operates one of the best, however small, Falafal and Mediterannean cusine foodlines in Silicon Valley.  His opinion?  These Muslims are as evil as the Satan they claim the U.S. to be.  Granted we, in our zeal to demonstrate our freedom, make it difficult for a practicing Muslim to send his daughter to public school and requires he carefully watch her television and public exposure according to the demands of his religion.  But he is the first to recognize that his are the same concerns as fundamentalist Christain, Menonite, Quaker, or other Orthodox Jewish communities.  The modern world is not a pretty place and exceedingly difficult for strong religious beliefs to deal with.

Al's comment?  Pardon me for revealing his lapse, this religious man slipped to say "The Bastards" in Farsi, and they ashamedly confessed to me the translations...unfortunately his use was a bit more colorful ... something about copulation with camels mixed in with this particular curse.  And while Al goes to the Mosque to pray for those in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennyslvania, I have to agree with his immediate reaction.

So what is it about Al-Qaida, and other such fanatical Islamic elements of the Muslim society, that makes them so dangerous.  It was clearly demonstrated Tuesday.  Their lives mean nothing and the demonstration of their fanaticism if more important than the grief of their families, their peoples, and the impact against those of their religion who do not condone what they do.  In other words a selfish selflessness.  And while that sounds like a contradiction in terms, let's think about that.  Selfishly, they believe their cause is the ultimate decider.  They decide they have been granted the right to take any action which calls attention to what they believe in, not stopping short of murder, but extending it beyond mass murder to "way-of-life" murder.  For on Tuesday, the American way of life took a huge hit that now means we will change forever in this country.

As predicted by MILNET as well as more and better educated experts in Terrorism, the major mass murder attacks have escalated beyond the original World Trade Center bombing to life changing proportions for the entire nation.  Sadly there is only the use of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons by terrorists remaining in the course of terrorist events.

Al-Qaida is responsible for exceedingly more heinous crimes against humanity.  And ironically, the more attention brought to their activities the stronger they appear to become.   Infamous for their three isolated bomb attacks against U.S. forces in Aden,  Yemen in 1992, the organization was identified solidly with the shooting down of U.S. heliopters and other attacks on U.S. solidiers in Somalia in 1993.  Then in 1994 they were linked to an assasination attempt against the Pope, a symbol of corrupt Satan's tool", the Christian pontif.  The escalation of their planning in that year and the next included attacks planned against US and Israeli Embassies in Manila as well as Asian capitals in late 1994.  In 1995, the midair bombing of a dozen US trans-Pacific flights in 1995, and a plan to kill President Clinton during a visit to the Philippines in early 1995. In 1998, they are known to have conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 persons and injured more than 5,000 others.  Retaliation against them only angered other Arab radicals and perhaps fed the group with new funds.

The linkage in two separate U.S. trails, and one in France, to worldwide terrorist operations including the original World Trade Center Blast, the attempt to smuggle in explosives for the thwarted Millenium attacks, as well as various European atrocities, only served to crystalize the organizations zeal to make an example of the self rightous, weak, and arrogant Americans.

So, today we face the prospect of:

1. Securing the evidence necessary to build a new coalition targeting Bin Laden's group
2. Presenting that evidence to world leaders both Western and Islamic
3. Planning a retalitory attack that will be viewed as a rational and effective while "civilized" response
4. Execute that response with the hopes (and perhaps clever targeting) of getting the man who has masterminded this wee's events.

The difficulty, of course, is that they are hiding in Afghanistan, a country difficult to conduct judicial prosecution, capture or even location of the criminal elements Bin Laden is thought to emulate in the tiny nation.  With the increased strict Islamic rule and frankly barbaric throw back interpretation of Islamic law, the Taliban who now govern most of Afghanistan is clearly responsible for aiding and abetting Al-Qaida and Bin Laden.

Clearly Al-Qaida does not exist on their own, and aside from indirect support given through shelter in Afghanistan, it is suspectd that Al-Qaida gets their funding from Bin Laden's personal fortune, theft from Muslim charities, as well as various like-minded supporters in the Middle East.  It is also suspected he gets some cash and material support from fringe elements in Saudi Aabia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and/or Syria. Even Libya might be in the game to provide covert funds to Bin Laden, making him the terrorist arm of nations racically opposed to the West.

Thus clearly, to strike at this evil, the democratic nations of the world must clearly identify the goal of putting Al-Qaida out of business.  Carpet bombing Afghanistan won't do it....the Russians considered this and the U.S. CIA helped the Mujhadeem Freedom Fighters to dig caves and build underground protection for them against the Russians.  It may take ground troops. It may take a combination of special weapons such as fuel-air bombs and a prolonged attack on not only Bin Laden, but  also strikes against the Afghanistan goverment for hiding Al-Qaida within their borders.  We can envision bombing attacks against Afghanian targets, only to anger moderate Arab nations. However, it may also take long, concerted efforts similar to Europes pursuit of the Green Party and The Red Army and the Bahner Meinhof Gang.

However the Western world -- and make no mistake, this will not be a unilateral U.S. attack -- chooses to respond to the world's worst terrorist attack, the world will be watching to see if indeed the sleeping tiger has been awakened once again -- awakened again after decades following Pearl Harbor.

And finally we agree.  Make it swift, thorough, and decisive.  Rid the world of these bastards once and for all.  And personally, MILNET volunteers vote to make the attacks particulary nasty.  A fuel-air bomb at the door of each cave and suspected hideout seems fitting somehow.

Michael Crawford
AFI International Network Partner
Chief Editor
MILNET
http://www.milnet.com
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