Thursday 22 May 2003

Who Is Running al-Qaeda?

It is EIR's assessment, at this time, that the hideously destructive terrorist attacks which occurred over May 11-14, against both Chechnya and Saudi Arabia, were probably carried out—as Russian President Vladimir Putin has charged—by al-Qaeda. But the important question remains: Who is running al-Qaeda?

The widespread view in the Arab world is that this terrorist network is comprised of misguided adherents of Islam, who are simply choosing a counter-productive method to express their rage against the overwhelming injustices being carried out by the United States, in particular, or by Russia. That opinion would appear to be buttressed by the fact that an explosion of terrorism against the United States, had been widely anticipated, in the wake of the hated Iraq war.

But it would be a terrible mistake to chalk these actions up to simply another "sociological phenomenon."

Start by taking a look at the pattern of terrorist incidents, for example. Look at the way in which the Israeli-Palestinian situation, for one, has developed. At virtually every point that promising prospects for peace were on the agenda, with the extremists on both sides being put under control, a new terrorist incident would break out. How convenient for those who never wanted to proceed with the peace process to begin with!

In the Israeli-Palestinian case, EIR has undertaken considerable study of this "coincidence." Lo and behold, it became apparent that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose entire career has been devoted to preventing a peaceful solution to the conflict, actually set up one of the most radical "Palestinian" terrorist groups, Hamas, in the 1980s. And whenever it was convenient for Sharon, the Hamas terrrorists would emerge to do their dirty work. This pattern continues to this very day.

A similar point of analysis has to be taken in the case of the biggest "terrorist" incident of the recent era, the Sept. 11, 2001 assaults on the United States. No one actually knows who carried out these assaults, although it can be said with surety that a network of Arabs headquartered abroad, could not have had the capability to carry out this sophisticated operation, without decisive help from forces inside the United States.

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