Sleuthing out the terrorists

Recently, there have been a couple of good news stories as far as dealing with terrorism is concerned. They’ve passed almost unnoticed: but they should be cheered. Three British Muslims were convicted of plotting to commit acts of terror. And in the United States, some Afghani men were taken into custody, suspected of planning terrorist attacks. The good news is that, in both cases (assuming of course, in the case of the Afghani suspects, the evidence against them is solid) the convictions and arrests were the result of several months of investigation. Furthermore, these convictions and arrests have been effected before the men were able to carry out any of the planned crimes.

One assumes, and hopes, that these results are due to good, honest, and painstaking detective and surveillance work, with no torture involved. Here the hard graft of careful criminal investigation has made us all that much safer from the ill intentions of terrorists. This should be cheered because this is the way to victory over terrorism: focused attention to the activities of terrorists. We should know more of this, so that we can insist that this is where resources of money and manpower are deployed. There are probably all too few such resources being put in this direction, given the requirements of the wider and ill-conceived “war on terror”. In terms of stopping specific acts of terror, steady and sustained sleuthing will probably return greater rewards.

More good news was to be found in The Guardian Weekly (18/09/09). Here, in a couple of articles, it was reported that Al-Qaida is losing ground and finding it difficult to find new recruits, much less effectively mount attacks. Some of the reasons for this are an increasing disenchantment with the indiscriminate loss of life, and the tactics of terror, amongst the wider population in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Algeria and Indonesia. Fellow Muslims, it seems, are sick of the violence and wanton mayhem. And in Saudi Arabia, a report stated, “60%-70% of information about Al-Qaida suspects now come from relatives, friends and neighbours, not from security agencies or surveillance” (GW, 18/09/09, 2).

The problems for recruitment stem from the fact that Al-Qaida has been unable to carry out any large-scale attacks in the West since the London bombings in 2005. This is coupled with the fact that some young men, from the West, who go for training, are disillusioned by the lack of excitement and action, as well as the requirement to spend hours in study of the Quran. Some of the success in limiting Al-Qaida’s operations, it is true, is due to military action, and in particular the search and destroy missions of military drones against key operatives. A number of leading terrorists have been killed or captured in recent months. Furthermore, the ability of terrorists to communicate with each other has been disrupted, or successfully monitored.

Ironically, it may be the West’s military operations in such theatres as Afghanistan that have stirred Al-Qaida to redouble its efforts, along with a resurgent Taliban movement, that has led to its demise. As stated above, the ordinary citizens are becoming sick of their activities: and, according to The Guardian Weekly, the usefulness of Al-Qaida to the Taliban is waning and ties are fraying. The question is, of course, whether the West’s military action in Afghanistan is, in fact, ensuring that a dangerous group is being replaced by another danger in the renewed strength of the Taliban.