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Al-Qaeda Hobbled by Improved Anti-Terror, Intelligence Efforts
2009-09-30
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Al-Qaeda has failed to carry out major attacks in recent months because of improved counterterrorism efforts, better intelligence and a reduced ability to recruit terrorists, a senior United Nations Security Council official said. “Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have really not been able to mount the level and the quantity of attacks that they would hope to in recent months” as counterterrorism activities become more sophisticated and groups wane in their appeal and recruitment efforts, said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the UN’s al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Team. Intelligence-gathering and targeting operations have improved substantially in the eight years since the Sept. 11 attacks, leading to the capture or assassination of numerous key leaders of al-Qaeda and its related networks in Southeast Asia, Iraq and Pakistan, Barrett said in an address yesterday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. World leaders are stepping up efforts to enforce sanctions against financiers of terrorist networks and to undermine the message of al-Qaeda through “political actions and propaganda” aimed at countering anti-American sentiment in Muslim-majority countries, he said. Al-Qaeda leaders “haven’t ‘‘been able to persuade people that this is the right way,’’ he said, referring to the terrorist network’s propaganda campaigns. ‘‘I don’t think it’s working anymore.” Obama’s Impact Barrett said al-Qaeda sees President Barack Obama as a threat because he represents a mixed-race, multicultural West and has extended a hand of engagement to the Muslim world. The concern terrorist networks “have with Obama being elected is they can’t attract people” who don’t see the U.S. as quite the same enemy as before, he said. Pakistan and Yemen remain two countries where there’s significant reason for concern, said Barrett, a former British intelligence official and a member of the UN Secretary- General’s Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force. Terrorist networks are building strength in Pakistan, where Barrett said some Pakistani military and intelligence officials retain links with extremist Muslim groups. At the same time, terrorists who once sought haven in Afghanistan have found it harder to operate under pressure from U.S. and NATO forces and have migrated to neighboring Pakistan. “Al-Qaeda has made the calculation that if they’re to put their chips on the table,†Yemen, the poorest Arab nation and the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has become a haven for al- Qaeda members from Saudi Arabia, which began a crackdown on the terrorist organization after a series of attacks in 2004. Distracted Government The government of Yemen is distracted by a rebellion in the north and a separatist movement in the south. Also, insurgent activity leaks over the border from Somalia. With Yemen also plagued by 35 percent unemployment and a faltering economy, “everybody is most worried about the situation” in the country, Barrett said. Yemen was the site of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors, and al-Qaeda twice targeted the U.S. embassy in the capital, Sana’a, last year. The latest attack was a twin suicide car bombing in September 2008 that left 17 people dead, including six security guards and seven assailants. Obama promised earlier this month to provide U.S. support to Yemen’s government to bolster security. In a letter to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Obama said the U.S. will soon present an initiative to provide more aid for Yemen through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Gulf countries, Yemeni officials said. To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Washington at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net .
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