A special section from September 12, 2001

8/4/2019 A special section from September 12, 2001

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Thelegionsthat hateAmerica

THE SUSPECTSD1 N A T I O NA L P O S T , W E D NE S D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 0 1

BIN LADEN BELIEVES TERRORIS HIS HEAVENLY DECREE

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Osama bin Laden is shown in April, 1998, in Afghanistan. The terrorist leader reportedly lives modestly in a cave in eastern Afghanistan withhis four wives and some 15 children.

BY I S A B E L VI N C E N T

The Wests anger at yesterdayshorrible terrorist attacks ragedagainst one man, Osama binLaden a shadowy Saudi-bornmilitant who for the past fiveyears has actively declared holy war against the United Statesfrom bases in Afghanistan andSudan.

Bin Laden believes terror is hisheavenly decree, and in the lastfew years, he has reportedly fi-nanced some of the most devas-tating terrorist attacks againstU.S. installations.

Three years ago, he founded theInternational Islamic Front forJihad against the Jews and theCrusaders, and is now one of thekey backers of an army of thou-sands of Islamic fundamentalistswilling to die in the jihad, or holy war, against the United Statesand its allies.

In addition to yesterdays at-tacks in New York and Washing-ton, bin Laden has been blamedfor the 1996 terrorist attack inSaudi Arabia that resulted in thedeaths of 19 U.S. soldiers, and hasbeen indicted in a U.S. court forhis alleged role in the 1998 bomb-ing of U.S. embassies in Tanzaniaand Kenya, which killed 224 peo-

ple. Terrorism experts believe hewas behind last years attack onthe USS Cole, an American war-ship stationed in Yemen, whichkilled 17 U.S. sailors. He is alsoimplicated in the December,1992, attack on a Yemeni hotelthat injured several tourists andin an assassination attempt onHosni Mubarak, then the Egypt-ian president, in Ethiopia in June1995.

Reacting to the U.S. embassy at-tacks in Africa three years ago,former U.S. president Bill Clin-ton called bin Laden the pre-em-inent organizer and financier ofinternational terrorism in theworld today. In retaliation for thebombings, the United States thenlaunched cruise missiles against

terrorist objectives in Sudan andAfghanistan.Terrorism experts believe mili-

tant Islamic regimes in Sudanand Afghanistan have been col-luding with bin Laden for years toattack U.S. installations world-wide. Over the last 20 years, bothcountries have been instrumentalto bin Ladens rise in the radicalIslamist underground.

To thousands of fundamentalistMuslims around the world, binLaden is a great hero who has bankrolled radical Muslimgroups from Afghanistan to theBalkans to Chechnya. He haspaid for the training of thousandsof young militant Muslims incamps in Afghanistan and Pak-istan, and has close ties to someof the radical Muslim worldsstrongest leaders and to swornenemies of the United States, in-cluding Iraqs Saddam Hussein.

In the West, he is public enemynumber one today, the worldsmost wanted man.

To date, bin Laden is the onlyterrorist leader to have formallydeclared a jihad holy war against the United States, saysYossef Bodansky, a military ana-lyst and the director of the Con-gressional Task Force on Terror-ism and Unconventional War-fare. And he has done so numer-ous times since 1996, reinforcinghis original call to arms with ad-ditional and more specific de-crees as his theological and com-mand authority has grown.

Yet the man for whom the U.S.government has put up a US$5-million bounty does not quite fitthe mould of the evil genius in-tent on the destruction of theworlds greatest superpower.

See BIN LADEN on Page D2

PRIME SUSPECT

Saudi contractorsson, radicalized inhis youth, is worldsmost wanted man

THE BASEBin Laden and his army of3,000 have a secure homein Afghanistan. Page D2

ISLAMS EXTREMISTSThe Washington PostsCharles Krauthammerdefines the enemy: Itsname is radical Islam.

Not Islam as practisedpeacefully by millions of thefaithful around the world.

But a specific fringepolitical movement

Page D7

INSIDE

JIHAD HAS MANY FACES

Some experts say

attacks might havebeen too complexfor bin Laden

BY S T E W A R T B EL L

As smoke billowed from NewYork and Washington after yes-terdays surprise terrorist attacks,blame fell quickly on Osama binLaden but the list of suspects islonger than that.

There is no shortage of fanaticsaround the world who would loveto cause mayhem in the heart ofAmerica, from the Japanese RedArmy to Colombias FARC rebelsto the Palestinian guerrillas atwar with Israel.

And it must be recalled that af-

ter the 1995 bombing of the Al-fred P. Murrah Federal Buildingin Oklahoma City, bin Laden wasimmediately fingered as the cul-prit, until investigators discov-ered those responsible were American militia types angryover the Waco siege.

Few organizations, however,have the sophistication, anti- American fervour and callousdisregard for civilians necessaryto pull off the type of co-ordinat-ed hijacking-suicide attacks wit-nessed yesterday. The exceptionis those groups and governmentsinvolved in the jihad, the globalholy war whose foot soldiers be-lieve it is their religious duty tobattle Americans and Jews.

Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi

recluse who defeated the Sovietsin Afghanistan and went on tolaunch a global holy war against American influence, is withoutquestion a key figure in the jihad.But in the absence of firm evi-dence, it may be simplistic to laythe blame entirely at his feet.

Isolated in Afghanistan andclosely watched by Western intel-ligence agents, he is not necessar-ily the puppet master of interna-tional terrorism many make himout to be.

Rather, he is the most visibleand well-known face of a worldwide Islamic-inspired terroristmovement whose misguided fol-lowers believe violence is justifiedto counter what they consider tobe the worlds anti-Islamic forces,namely the United States, Israeland their allies.

See LIST on Page D4


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D2 NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

BIN LADENContinued from Page D1

Shymanwith asavage

reputation

ZAHID HUSSEIN / REUTERS

Afghanistans ruling Taleban Foreign Minister, Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, left, speaks with his aides yesterday, prior to a press conference in which he condemned the attacks.

Bin Laden is the only terrorist leader to have formally declared a jihad holy war

against the United States. And he has done so numerous times since 1996,

reinforcing his original call to arms with additional and more specific decrees

BY PA T C H E N BA R S S

If Osama bin Laden was indeedresponsible for yesterdays at-tacks on the United States, thenthe campaign was likely co-ordi-nated from his traditional safehaven within the country ofAfghanistan.

Not only is bin Laden the topsuspect in the attacks in NewYork and Washington, he is also

thought to be behind the recentsuicide bombing of the last re-maining opposition leader inAfghanistan.

Ninety percent of that country iscontrolled by the Taleban, a re-pressive religious regime that issympathetic to bin Laden.

The only opposition to the Tale-ban is a group called the UnitedFront. Yesterday, though, TheNew York Times reported that thecharismatic leader of that opposi-tion, Ahmed Shah Massoud, wasunconscious or dead after beingattacked by suicide bombers pos-ing as journalists. The Timescalled Mr. Massoud, 48, the gluethat holds the remaining anti-Taleban forces together.

The attack on Mr. Massoud wasa strategic strike that may serveboth to solidify the Talebans holdon Afghanistan, and increase binLadens power within the Tale-ban.

Mutual sympathy between binLaden, one of the worlds most wanted terrorists, and Afghan-istan, one of the worlds most re-pressive countries, goes back along way.

Bin Laden became a militaryhero to the Afghans during their war against the Soviet Union,which began in 1979. Shortly af-ter he arrived to join the resis-tance, he told an Arab journalist,One day in Afghanistan was like1,000 days of praying in an ordi-nary mosque.

Bin Laden reputedly fought innumerous battles during the

Afghan war against the Soviets asa guerrilla commander, includingthe battle of Jalalabad, whichforced Soviets finally to withdrawfrom Afghanistan. After the war, bin Laden re-

turned to Saudi Arabia, his coun-try of birth, but he continued torun the organization Al Qaeda,which he had created in part toraise military and monetary sup-port for Afghanistan. Bin Ladenwas eventually forced to flee Sau-di Arabia because of his opposi-tion to the Saudis co-operationwith the United States.

He first returned to Afghanistan,then went to the Sudan. Mean-while, Al Qaeda evolved into aninternational terror organization,and a training camp for Islamic

rebels waging the jihad, or holywar.In 1996, bin Laden relocated its

centre of operations from the Su-dan back to Afghanistan. He nowreportedly has about 3,000 Arabradicals from 12 different coun-tries there.

This year, bin Laden spoke ofAfghanistan to his followers in avideotaped message. There isnow a Muslim state that enforcesGods law, which destroys false-hood, and which does not suc-cumb to the American infidels and it is led by a true believer,Mullah Mohammed Omar [theTaleban leader], the commanderof the Faithful, he said.

The Taleban also has a long andpositive memory of bin Ladensaffiliation with their country.

Let me tell you somethingabout Osama, he didnt just cometo Afghanistan. He has been herefor the past 14 years off and on, Abdul Sattar Paktis, a ForeignMinistry representative of theTaleban, told the press in 1998.He is our guest, and we will nev-er force him out.

So far, bin Laden and Al Qaedahave denied responsibility foryesterdays attacks. Afghanistanhas also denied involvement, anda Taleban diplomat has expressedhis organizations sympathy.

We want to tell the Americanchildren that Afghanistan feels your pain. We hope the courtsfind justice, ambassador MullahAbdul Salam Zaeef said in a state-ment yesterday.

Such denials are prudent, as the Americans have reputedlywarned that they would retaliateagainst Afghanistan for any ter-rorist activities attributed to binLaden or Al Qaeda.

National Post, with files

from news services

ALI JAREKJI / REUTERS

Muslim pilgrims at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The construction company owned by bin Ladens father renovated and rebuilt several mosques.

SYMPATHETIC RE GIME

BIN LADEN,

AFGHANISTANHAVE CLOSE TIES

The convicted terrorists whohave worked for his various ter-rorist organizations around theworld, and the few, mostly Arab,journalists who have met and in-terviewed him, describe him as apainfully shy and modest busi-nessman in his mid-forties. Withhis white robes and beard, helooks not unlike a pious Muslimcleric in the rare black-and-whitenews photographs taken of himin the last ten years. Today, he re-portedly lives a modest life in acave in eastern Afghanistan alongwith his four wives and some 15children.

Yet the fanatical Muslim mili-tant who has repeatedly said thathe is fighting for the greater gloryof Allah in his mission to destroythe infidel United States, spentmuch of his youth in the sixtiesdoing the kinds of things that herails against today. According toone of his biographers, bin Ladenspent his younger years hangingout in Beirut nightclubs, wherehe developed a reputation as awomanizer and heavy drinker, of-ten enmeshed in Hemingway-esque bar brawls.

His devotion to Islam reported-ly came later, in the mid 1970s,after the outbreak of the civil warin Lebanon.

Osama bin Muhammad binLaden was born in Riyadh, SaudiArabia, probably in 1957. At thetime, his father, Muhammad binLaden, was a small-time builderand contractor who had arrivedin Saudi Arabia from his nativeYemen in search of employment.During the 1960s, the bin Ladenfamily moved to Hijaz in thewestern part of Saudi Arabia andeventually settled in Al-MedinaAl-Munawwara where Osama,one of Muhammed bin Ladens50 children, received most of hisformal education.

Bin Ladenpres fortunes weregreatly improved following the oil boom of the 1970s, which ce-mented his business connections with Saudi royalty. In fact, binLaden senior established closecontacts with the Royal House ofal-Saud as both a builder and a

provider of what one terrorismexpert described asdiscreet ser-vices such as the laundering ofpayments from the royal familyto special training and, somebelieve, terrorist causes aroundthe world.

See BIN LADEN on Page D3


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D3NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

BIN LAD ENContinued from Page D2

Bin Laden Construction becameone of the biggest construction

companies in the Middle East. Inthe late 1970s, it was involved in the building of roads, mosques, air-ports and the entire infrastructureof many of the Arab countries in thePersian Gulf. Muhammed binLaden was accorded special statuswhen the House of al-Saud award-ed him the contracts to renovateand rebuild the two holy mosquesin Mecca and Medina.

The experience reportedly had astrong spiritual effect on him thatsoon filtered down to his son, whostudied management and econom-ics at King Abdul Aziz University inJedda, one of Saudi Arabias bestbusiness schools.

In a 1998 report, YoramSchweitzer, of the InternationalPolicy Institute on Counter-Terror-ism, declared that "the principaldanger presented by the phenome-non of "sub-state" supporters of ter-ror like bin Ladin is the combina-tion of tremendous financial re-sources coupled with an extremistideology backed, in his view, byheavenly decree; an ideology whichadvocates the wholesale slaughter.The massive political and militarydislocations that began in Muslimworld in the mid-1970s greatly af-fected the young bin Laden.

The outbreak of the Lebanese civilwar in 1975 prevented his regularvisits to Beirut, then the chic clubcapital of the Arab world, wherethousands of young, moneyed Arabyouth would congregate for boutsof Western-inspired drinking andclubbing.

In Saudi Arabia, Islamists

claimed the agony of the Lebanesewas a punishment from God fortheir sins and the destructive influ-ence they had on young Muslims.Osama bin Laden, who had im-mersed himself in radical Muslimtexts was strongly influenced bysuch arguments, according to Mr.

Bodansky, the terrorism expert.Then, in February, 1979, Ayatol-

lah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrewthe Shah of Iran, and establishedthe Islamic Republic there. In theworld of fundamentalist Muslims,

it was seen as a pivotal event thetriumph of Islam over the UnitedStates and the West.

But months after the Islamic Rev-olution in Iran, Osama bin Ladensworld and that of many other radi-cal young Muslims was turned up-side down by the invasion ofAfghanistan by the Soviet Union.At the time, Afghanistan was ruled by a Soviet-backed communistregime, which was being chal-lenged by Pakistani-sponsored Is-lamist subversives.

Bin Laden was one of the firstArabs to volunteer to fight the Sovi-et troops. I was enraged and wentthere at once, he told an Arab

newspaper, adding that he was in-spired by the plight of Muslims ina medieval society besieged by atwentieth-century superpower.

In our religion, there is a specialplace in the hereafter for those whoparticipate in jihad.At first, bin Laden went to neigh-

bouring Pakistan, where he assist-ed the Afghan mujahedeen by es-tablishing a recruitment drive thatover the next few years would sendthousands of Arab fighters from theGulf States to join the Afghan resis-tance. He personally financed theirtravel costs to Afghanistan and set

up the main camps in Pakistan where the new recruits weretrained in guerrilla warfare.

He recruited Islamists with spe-cial knowledge everyone fromphysicians to engineers to terroristsand drug smugglers. After adecade, he had set up recruitment

centres in fifty countries, includingSaudi Arabia, Egypt and even theUnited States. The Masadat Al-Ansar, the central base for Arabmujahideen or holy warriors,trained thousands of guerrilla war-

riors, teaching them how to con-front the harsh conditions that theywould encounter in Afghanistan.

Using his fathers business connec-tions, he shipped heavy engineeringequipment to Afghanistan for the war effort, and even convincedmembers of the royal family in Sau-di Arabia to support his cause.

But in addition to his role as one ofthe chief organizers and financiersof the guerrilla warriors inAfghanistan, he spent ten years inthe country fighting alongside themujahideen in key battles, such asthe one at Jalalabad.

In 1989, after achieving militarysuccess against the Soviets in

Afghanistan, he returned to SaudiArabia as a hero. He settled with hisfamily in a modest apartment inJeddah and prepared to return towork at the family firm although hestill had powerful connectionswithin the Saudi royal family.

However, his fortunes changed a year later when Iraq invadedKuwait. Bin Ladens fervent anti-Americanism suddenly became athreat to the Saudis, since they hadsided with the United States in theGulf War. Saudi officials threatenedto shut down his business opera-tions in the country if he continued

his radical proselytizing against theUnited States.

Following the Gulf War, binLaden found a welcome home inSudan, which was ruled by the fun-damentalist Muslim Hasssan Ab-dallah al-Turabi. By all accounts, hemeant to live a quiet life, taking up

his old profession of construction.But that changed when Sudaneseofficials called upon his expertise tocreate a global financial web thatcould fund extreme terrorist activi-ties around the globe.After officials of the Bank of Eng-

land closed down the Bank of Cred-it and Commerce International an institution run by Pakistanis andlargely financed by rich Gulf Arabs,and used to launder money that went to terrorist causes binLaden was called in to establish anew financial network that paid forthe training of holy warriors andterrorism against the U.S. Using his base in the Sudanese capital ofKhartoum, bin Laden set up a com-

plicated web of bank accounts andother financial instruments inbanking centres such as London,Geneva and Chicago that wouldprovide financing for the jihad. Theaccounts were used to filter fundsto terrorists working in dozens ofcountries, including Croatia, Alba-nia, Chechnya, Malaysia, Romaniaand the United States.

By 1993, thanks largely to his fi-nancial skills, bin Laden hadworked his way into the inner circleof leadership of the internationalIslamist movement.

He began to cement relationshipswith some of the U Ss biggest ene-mies. In 1997, he forged relationswith Iraqs Saddam Hussein. Thetwo men set up training camps atwhich Saudi extremists were trainedto collect intelligence on U.S. targetsand plan and launch strikes. OtherSaudis were organized into a net-work for smuggling weapons and ex-plosives from Iraq into Saudi Arabia.

If bin Laden does take responsi-bility for yesterdays terrorist at-tacks, terrorism experts believe thelink with Iraq is key. Many havespeculated that bin Laden couldnot have acted alone. But as manyhave already pointed out, binLaden is not alone in his jihad. Hehas the support of thousands offundamentalists, ready to die in ful-filling his heavenly decree.

Bin Laden does not actually planthe military operations he supportson his own. His closest advisor is aformer Egyptian pediatriciannamed Ayman al-Zawahari, who issaid to be equally fanatic, and lives

next to bin Laden in easternAfghanistan.

He is not an evil Lone Ranger, writes the military analyst and ter-rorism expert Yossef Bodansky, butrather a principal player in a tangledand sinister web of terrorism.

National Post

Bin Laden radicalized byLebanon, Afghanistan

IN OUR RELIGION, THERE IS A SPECIAL PLACE

IN THE HEREAFTER FOR THOSE WHO

PARTICIPATE IN THE JIHAD

REUTERS

Osama bin Laden holds a weapon in a frame from a video obtained by Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-Aam in June. The video, made by the Osama bin Laden organization, shows the leader and other fighters in train-ing, and claims responsibility for and praises la st years bombing of the U.S. warship USS Cole.

The man who says he is waging war for the greater glory

of Allah in his mission to destroy the infidel United States

is described by journalists who have met him as painfully shy

BY JA M E S C O W A N

A U.S. official said yesterday in-

telligence specialists will investi-gate a number of organizationsconsidered capable of mountingan attack like the one on NewYork and Washington.

Aside from Osama bin Laden,possible suspects include Pales-tinian and Arab groups that vehe-mently oppose U.S. policy in theMiddle East. Experts note thatseveral anniversaries relating tothe Palestinian struggle occur thismonth, including the massacre ofPalestinian refugees by IsraelsLebanese Christians in 1982, thesigning of the Oslo Peace accordin 1993, and the start of the cur-rent Palestinian uprising one yearago. Yesterdays events could havebeen meant to commemorate anyof these events.

Indeed, early yesterday morning,an anonymous caller to an AbuDhabi television station claimedresponsibility for the attacks onbehalf of the anti-Israeli group, theDemocratic Front for the Libera-tion of Palestine (DFLP), but thegroup has since denied any con-nection. Members of the PopularFront for the Liberation of Pales-tine (PFLP) and the Egypt-basedIslamic Jihad have also claimedinnocence, although the Jihadwent on to state that it was happyto see America suffer the pain andbitterness that our people feel.

One organization reportedly onthe list of suspects is the Hezbol-lah, the Lebanese guerrilla groupaccused of bombing the Israeliembassy and a Jewish communi-ty centre in Argentina in the early

1990s. (Hezbollah officials re-fused to comment on yesterdaysattacks.) Experts also point to na-tions such Iran, Iraq, Syria, andLibya as possible suspects. Thesenations have financed anti-Amer-ican terrorist activities in thepast, although, yesterday, all but

Iraq condemned the attacks.Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafiwent so far as to offer aid to theUnited States.

In the end, the investigatorsshortlist is undoubtedly a shortone, since the attacks clearly re-quired a high level of expertiseand financing. It is a new kind ofterrorism, said Shabtai Shavit, a

former head of Israels Mossadintelligence agency. Whoeverperpetrated this deserves a lot ofcredit for being able to plan andexecute this kind of complicatedterrorist attack without any detailbeing leaked out.

But theres a suggestion that in-vestigators are repeating past er-rors by focusing on foreign ter-rorist threats. Jay Coupe, a leadinvestigator in the 1995 bomb-ings of American embassies inAfrica, noted, Many of us weretoo quick eight years ago to sug-gest that the Oklahoma Citybombings were the work of over-seas terrorists.

In the end, it was two Americanmilitants who were found respon-sible. Once source cited as sup-porting this theory is The TurnerDiaries, a 1970s book thats a pop-ular text within the United Statesneo-Nazi movement and oneheavily promoted by TimothyMcVeigh before the Oklahomabombings. The book contains apassage eerily reminiscent of yes-terdays events. The books narra-tor describes slamming his planelike a bat out of hell into the sideof the Pentagon.

National Post, with files from news services

Attacks requiredhigh level of expertise

and financing

Short list of suspectsis short indeed

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Timothy McVeigh was convictedfor the Oklahoma City bombing.


4/8

Sept.11, 2001New YorkTwo commercial flights fromBoston are hijacked and crash in-to New Yorks World Trade Cen-ter, destroying both towers.American Airlines Flight 11, aBoeing 767 with 92 people onboard, crashes into one of thetowers. United Airlines Flight175, a Boeing 767 with 65 peopleon board, crashes into the othertower.Mayor Rudolph Giuliani esti-mates that a horrendous num-ber of the 40,000 people whoworked there are dead.WashingtonAmerican Airlines Flight 77, aBoeing 757 with 64 people on

board, crashes into the west sideof the Pentagon, near a helicopterlaunching pad.PennsylvaniaUnited Airlines Flight 93, a Boe-ing 757 with 45 people on board,crashes just north of the Somer-set County Airport nearShanksville, Penn.ResponseAll flights in North America aregrounded. George W. Bush, theU.S. President, announces theU.S will hunt down and punishthe terrorists. Palestinian andJapanese groups initially claimresponsibility, but speculationcentres on terrorist Osama binLaden, widely believed to be theonly person capable of co-ordi-nating such an extensive attack.

Oct.12, 2000Gulf of AdenAn explosives-laden rubber raftrams a U.S. destroyer, the U.S.S.Cole, and explodes in the port ofAden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors.Two previously unknown groups,the Islamic Deterrence Forcesand Mohammed's Army, claim re-sponsibility for the attack, butsuspicion centres on Osama binLaden. He is indicted by the U.S.for the bombings, but takes refugein Afghanistan, where he is har-boured by the ruling Taleban.ResponseYemen arrests 12 suspects in theattack, but most of the terroristsare believed to have fled toAfghanistan.

Aug. 7, 1998Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar esSalaam, TanzaniaTruck bombs explode at the U.S.embassies, killing 224 people, in-cluding 12 Americans, and injur-ing thousands. All but 10 of thedeaths are in Nairobi, wheredamage is the worst.A week later, Pakistan deportssuspect Mohammed SaddiqOdeh, also known as Abdull BastAwadh and Mohammad SadiqHowaida, to Kenya, where he re-portedly claims allegiance toOsama bin Laden.ResponseBill Clinton, then the U.S. presi-dent, launches missiles againstOsama bin Ladens base inAfghanistan in retaliation for the

attacks.

June 21, 1998Fired from 700 metres away,rocket-propelled grenades ex-plode near the heavily guardedU.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.The grenades appear to havebeen fired from a crude launcher,suggesting the attack was notmade by an organized group. Theattack comes two days afterLebanese Prime Minister RaficHariri visited Washington. Noone claims responsibility.

June 25, 1996A Mercedes truck explodes out-side a U.S. military complex inKhobar near the Saudi Arabian oilcity of Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. sol-diers and wounding nearly 400.ResponseIn March, 1997, a 28-year-oldSaudi Shiite, Hani al Sayegh, isarrested in Canada and extradit-ed on the condition that he pleadguilty for earlier bombings andnot face trial for the Khobar at-tack. He pleads not guilty to allcharges, and the attack remainsunsolved.

Continued on Page D5


At first instinct you want topoint the finger at Osama binLaden, said John Thompson, ex-ecutive director of the MacKenzieInstitute, a Canadian think-tankon security issues. Its a verywell-planned attack, as all of hisnormally are. Its extremely dam-aging in human life, as most ofhis attacks are intended to be.

But his network hasnt been re-sponsible for suicide bombings,except for the rubber boat attackon the American warship inYemen. I think theres military-grade planning behind it. This ismore sophisticated in terms ofthe grade of the attack than binLaden has been up to, Mr.Thompson said.

A military planner was behindthis.

The high-level planning and co-ordination required to skirt secu-rity at several airports, simulta-

neously hijack four jet liners andpilot three of them into the WorldTrade Center and Pentagon raisesthe possibility foreign militarypowers were somehow involved.An analysis by the publication

Janes Intelligence Review said

the organization behind the at-tack would have had to have anextreme hatred of the UnitedStates and its institutions, a well-organized network, the expertiseto carry out simultaneous hijack-ings, complete disregard for theconsequences of their actions anda willingness to die for the cause.

Based on that,Janes specialistshave identified as prime suspectsthe bin Laden network and thePopular Front for the Liberationof Palestine but also SuddamHussein, the Iraqi leader whosestrategy is to defy the West in or-der to gain clout in the Arabworld, which he hopes to lead.Iraq may have also provided fi-nancing and logistical supportfor the attack, it added.

Iraq was certainly not mourningthe attack. State television inBaghdad aired footage of theWorld Trade Center collapsing,accompanied by a patriotic songthat began Down with Ameri-ca! Iran is also a major sponsorof Islamic terrorist groups, as is

Afghanistan, which harbours binLaden and his camps.

That is not to say that bin Ladenwas not involved. But if he was, hemay have had help. The attack onthe United States may have beenthe result of a co-ordinated effort

between several terrorist networksand states. Indeed, bin Ladenslegacy to terrorism has been hissuccess in uniting disparate Islam-ic groups and governments into aworldwide front for jihad.

The term jihad refers to the fightagainst evil, a duty that can be ful-filled with the heart, tongue, handand sword. Modern Islam focuseson the first three, emphasizing theinner, spiritual jihad. But extrem-ists interpret Islamic law literallyto mean they must use violence tomake all nations surrender toMuslim rule. Those who die doingso will become martyrs awarded aspecial place in heaven.

The mujahedeen guerrillas whobattled the Soviets in Afghanistansaw their fight as a form of jihad.Infuriated by the Soviet occupa-tion of the country, idealisticyoung Muslims from the worldover made their way to the regionto fight for the U.S.-backed holy warriors known as the muja-hedeen. The war turned into theSoviet version of Vietnam, and

when the Red Army finallylimped back to Moscow in 1989,the sense of victory was intoxicat-ing and the mujahedeen set out toexpand the war against all per-ceived enemies of Islam.

Bin Laden, who had led the muja-

hedeen guerrillas, founded Al Qae-da (the base), to unite radical Is-lamic forces around the world andcontinue the jihad on a global scale.He set up headquarters in Sudanand formed businesses in its capi-tal, Khartoum, that served as frontsfor paramilitary training camps,while raising money to finance thepurchase of arms and explosives.According to U.S. prosecutors,

Al Qaeda is not a single organiza-tion but a network of such groupsas Al Jihad, Vanguards of Con-quest that joined forces in 1998 toissue a fatwa under the banner ofthe International Islamic Frontfor Jihad on the Jews and Cru-saders that called for the killingof Americans worldwide. Al Qaeda regards the United

States as an infidel nation becauseit is not governed by Islamic princi-ples and provides support to otherinfidel governments and institu-tions, notably Israel, Saudi Arabia,Egypt and the United Nations.

Since then, bin Laden has beenimplicated in scores of anti-Amer-

ican attacks, most recently the1998 bombings of the U.S. em-bassies in Africa, the attemptedbombing of the Los Angeles air-port in 1999 and last years bomb-ing of a U.S. destroyer in Yemen.Al Qaeda operatives have also

fought on behalf of Muslims inBosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Kash-mir and Egypt and have beenlinked to a wave of terrorist bomb-ings that have led Canadian Secu-rity Intelligence Service and theFBI, among others, to designateinternational Islamic extremistsas their top security concern.

Despite a US$5-million rewardon his head, bin Laden has evad-ed capture by keeping on themove and hiding in caves in the Afghan mountains. Unable tobring bin Laden to justice, theUnited States and its allies haveinstead begun systematically dis-mantling the jihad networkthrough a series of trials in New York, Los Angeles, London,Frankfurt and Paris.

Those waging jihad are highlymobile and motivated, and sincethe only thing they have in com-mon is their devotion to violentjihad, they come from any num-ber of countries, which makes itextremely difficult for intelli-gence agencies to identify them.

This new era of international ter-rorism is unlike anything the worldhas seen. Driven by religious zeal,radical Islamic terrorists work in loose cells placed strategicallyaround the world, sustaining them-selves with criminal and businessenterprise, communicating usingcellphones and encrypted e-mail.

They may worship bin Laden,believe his assertion that they arefighting a global religious holy

war, and they may even be fi-nanced with his family fortuneand train at his para-militarybases in Afghanistan. But they donot necessarily operate strictlyunder his command.

See LIST on Page D5

At first instinct you want to point the finger at Osama bin Laden. But his network

hasnt been responsible for suicide bombings, except for the rubber boat attack on the

American warship in Yemen A military planner was behind this

MIKE NELSON / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist group Jamaa Islamiyya, is serving a life sentence in Springfield, Mo., for his role in terroristattacks, including the 1993 bombing of New Yorks World Trade Center.

LISTContinued from Page D1

A possible joint effort involvingterrorist networks and states

T E R R O R I S T

A T T A C K S

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SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS

Sept. 11, 2001.


5/8

That was the scenario in the Ahmed Ressam bombing con-spiracy. Ressam, a refugeeclaimant in Montreal, travelled toone of bin Ladens camps in Afghanistan and trained for abombing attack. He returned toCanada in 1999 and built a pow-erful chemical bomb at a Vancou-ver motel.

He had planned to set off thebomb at Los Angeles airport, butthe plot unravelled when he wascaught at the U.S. border by acustoms inspector who thought

his behaviour was suspicious.The bomb was found in the trunkof his car.Although Ressam was part of a

Montreal-based jihad cell and theconspiracy had its roots in one ofbin Ladens camps, U.S. prosecu-tors have not conclusively tied thebombing attempt to bin Laden.Instead, they contend thatRessam was taking orders froman agent in Britain.

The nature of the attack stronglysuggests it may have been relatedto the jihad. Suicide attacks arenot common outside the MiddleEast and require a rare degree ofdevotion, such as that displayedby Hamas, Islamic Jihad and oth-er religiously inspired groups thatbelieve in martyrdom.

Those who die in suicide attacksin the Middle East are praised asmartyrs by Islamic groups.These suicide bombers are thesalt of the earth, the engines ofhistory. They are the most hon-ourable among us, A Palestiniannewspaper reported a day beforethe U.S. attacks.

The choice of the World TradeCenter as a target may also pro-vide a clue. The same structurewas attacked in February, 1993,by Islamic militants, killing six.Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, ablind cleric who many Islamicmilitants worship as their spiritu-al leader, is serving a life sentencein the U.S. for his part in thebombing.

His imprisonment continues toanger Muslim radicals, who just

this week offered to swap him fora group of Western aid workers being held in Afghanistan oncharges of preaching Christianityin defiance of Kabuls strictly Is-lamic regime.

In addition, the aerial attacks

would have required terroristwith some pilot training, who arenot uncommon among the ranksof the Islamic terrorist networks.The timing of the attack at theheight of tensions between Israeland Arabs also lends credence tothe theory the attack was an act ofjihad.

Probably bin Laden would havethe resources and the support tocarry something like this out,said Alistair Hensler, former as-sistant director of Canadas intel-ligence service. Hes got the pro-tection of the government inAfghanistan. Hes got the supportof a number of governments.

I suspect thats probably not a

bad bet.But Mr. Hensler said to call thebin Laden network an organiza-tion would be misleading. Its agroup of fanatics they pull togeth-er, and they convince them to doit and they do it. Somebodyplanned it and would have had torecruit people to do it, and in thiscase it had to be someone whoknew something about planes.

He said the U.S. will have to re-visit its intelligence strategy inlight of the attacks.

The Americans spend billionson intelligence. They had thisfailure. The previous attack onthe [World Trade Center] build-ing was a failure. I think evenRessam was a failure. Some- bodys going to have to reviewwhat theyre doing it. Why arentthey getting the intelligence? If itdid come out of bin Laden, thequestion is why arent they cover-ing him better?

Eric Margolis, an expert on Is-lamic militant groups and the au-thor of War at the Top of theWorld, called the operation themost complex and sophisticatedterrorist attacks ever mounted.They are well beyond the opera-tional capability of any Mideastgroups yet seen. The co-ordinat-ed attacks must have required atleast a month of planning andpreparation.

His list of suspects includesMideast groups locked in a bit-ter, bloody struggle with Israel,which has come to be regardedacross the Muslim world as indis-

tinguishable from the U.S.A. Hesingles out the Democratic Frontfor the Liberation of Palestine,Egyptian Al-Jihad, Hamas, Is- lamic Jihad, Popular Front forthe Liberation of Palestine,Japanese Red Army, FARC and

bin Laden.The Japanese Red Army and the

Democratic Front for the Libera-tion of Palestine both reportedlyclaimed responsibility for the at-tacks, but neither claims wereconsidered credible and blanketdenials emerged throughout theday from the Middle East.

Hamas denied responsibilityand a senior official with the rad-ical Islamic Jihad denounced thekilling of civilians althoughboth organizations target civil-

ians in Israel. What happenedin the United States today is aconsequence of American poli-cies in the hottest region in theworld, an Islamic Jihad leadersaid. Afghanistans ruling Taliban

militia denied that bin Laden hadplayed any role in the attacks.Osama is only a person. He doesnot have the facilities to carry outsuch activities, an official said.We want to tell the Americanpeople that Afghanistan feelstheir pain. We hope that the ter-rorists are caught and brought tojustice.

The U.S. launched a cruise mis-sile on bin Ladens base in easternAfghanistan following the 1998bombings at the American em-

bassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian

leader, also denounced the at-tacks as a crime against humani-ty and offered to help find thoseresponsible. But Palestinians inLebanon celebrated the attacks

by firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades into the air.Big and small, America is full ofpigs, they chanted.Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the

London-based al-Quds al-Arabinewsmagazine, said bin Ladenwarned three weeks ago that hisfollowers would carry out an un-precedented and massive attackon U.S. interests for its support ofIsrael.

Personally we received infor-mation that he planned very, very

big attacks against American in-terests. We received several warnings like this. We did nottake it so seriously, preferring tosee what would happen before re-porting it, Mr. Atwan said.

See LIST on Page D6

D5NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 , 2001

Jihad refers to the fight against evil, a duty that can be fulfilled with the heart, tongue,

hand and sword. Extremists interpret Islamic law literally to mean they must use

violence to make all nations surrender to Muslim rule

MARTY LEDERHANDLER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Treating victims of the Feb. 26, 1 993, bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

ANTONY NJUGUNA / REUTERS

A bloodied U.S. embassy employee is escorted from the embassy in Nairobi after an explosion on Aug. 7, 1998. Four followers of Osama bin Laden were convicted on May 29 thisyear in connection with the bombing and one in Tanzania. The two attacks killed 224 people.


He had the bomb

in his trunk

T E R R O R I S T

A T T A C K S

1 9 8 3 2 0 0 1

Nov.13, 1995Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaA car bomb explodes outside aU.S.-run military centre, killingseven people, five of them Ameri-cans, and wounding 42.Three groups, including the Is-lamic Movement for Change,claim responsibility.ResponseFour Muslim militants are con-victed of the bombing, then be-headed in June, 1996.

April 19, 1995A car bomb destroys the Alfred P.Murrah Federal Building in Okla-homa City, killing 168 people.ResponseInitial suspicion centres on Arab

terrorists, but two American ex-tremists are convicted. TimothyMcVeigh is executed, and TerryNichols is jailed for life.

Feb.26, 1993Six people are killed and morethan 1,000 injured when a bombin a van explodes under the twintowers of the World Trade Center.ResponseIn 1998, six men, including sus-pected mastermind Ramzi Yousef,are convicted and sentenced to240 years in prison.

Dec.21, 1988A Pan American World AirwaysBoeing 747 crashes on Lockerbie,Scotland, killing 259 peopleaboard when a bomb on boardexplodes. Eleven people inLockerbie are also killed.ResponseAbdel-Basset Ali Megrahi is sen-tenced to life in prison.

April 5, 1986A bomb blast in a West Berlinnightclub kills a U.S. citizen and aGerman woman and wounds 150people, 44 of them Americans.The attacks follow U.S.-Libyanhostilities off the Libyan coast themonth before.ResponseThe U.S. alleges that MuammarGaddafi, the Libyan leader, or-dered the bombing, and respond-ed with air strikes against Libya.Three employees of Libyas for-mer embassy in East Germanyand two German sisters were

charged in the attack.

December, 1985Rome and ViennaAn Arab suicide hit squad attacksU.S. and Israeli check-in desks atinternational airports in Romeand Vienna simultaneously. Theattacks claim a total of 20 lives,including four guerrillas.

November, 1985MaltaHijackers of an EgyptAir planekill an American passenger onboard. The hijacking ends in abloodbath as Egyptian comman-dos storm the plane in Malta,where 60 people are killed.

August, 1985

FrankfurtA car bomb kills two and injures20 at a U.S. base in Frankfurt. AU.S. soldier murdered for hisidentity papers is found the dayafter the blast.

June, 1985JordanA TWA plane is hijacked in theMediterranean, the start of a two-week hostage drama. The last 39of the passengers taken hostageare released in Damascus, Jor-dan, after being held at variouspoints in Beirut.In El Salvador, during the samemonth, a machine gun attack kills13 people, including four U.S.Marines and two American busi-nessmen, at a pavement caf inthe capital San Salvador.

October, 1983BeirutA suicide car bomb attack by radi-cal Muslims on the headquartersof the U.S. military peacekeepingforce in Lebanon kills 241 U.S. ser-vicemen. A simultaneous attackon a French base in Beirut kills 58paratroopers.

April, 1983A suicide car bombing at the U.S.embassy in Beirut kills 63 people,including 17 Americans.

Joseph Brean, National Post

KHALIL SENOSI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Aug. 7, 1998, Nairobi.


6/8

Mr. Atwan has interviewed binLaden and maintains close con-tacts with his followers.

In June, the Arabic satellitetelevision channel MBC said itscorrespondent spent at least twohours with bin Laden and a largegroup of his followers, duringwhich his aides spoke of a severeblow against American interests.

There are indications that peo-ple with links to bin Laden andthe al Qaeda organization mayhave been responsible, but it isstill too premature and that hasnot been determined, a U.S. offi-cial said.Authorities in Boston, where

two of the hijacked planes origi-nated, were said to be searchingfor the terrorist cell behind theattack. James Hussey, Boston Po- lice Superintendent-in-Chiefsaid that while it was too soon to

determine who carried out thehijackings and deliberate crash-ing of at least four commercialairliners, the recent presence inBoston of two men with links tothe bin Laden network wouldlead many investigators to sus-pect that organization was in-

volved. But Hussey stressed thatauthorities had no other cluesthat would implicate the binLaden organization.

The top suspect, inevitably,must be Saudi dissident Osamabin Laden, who is currently har-boured by the Taleban regime inAfghanistan, Janes reported.Given bin Ladens alleged in-volvement in previous terroristoutrages, and the fact that his alQaeda organization is believed tohave a wide international base in various Islamic communitiesthroughout the world, it is clearto see why the U.S. and its allieswill regard bin Laden as the evilgenius behind what must be theworlds worst atrocity in modernhistory.

CSIS warned in a report re-leased this summer that one ofthe prime motivators of contem-porary terrorism is Islamic reli-gious extremism, at the forefrontof which are Sunni extremists.

The magnitude of the Sunni

extremist threat was exemplifiedby the 1993 World Trade Centerbombing, intended to cause up-wards of 35,000 casualties.

The agency has been investigat-ing several Islamic terrorist net-works operating in Canada. TwoEgyptians who CSIS accuses of

being members of Islamic terror-ist groups, Mahmoud Jaballahand Mohamed Mahjoub, are cur-rently under arrest in Torontoand facing deportation. Severalother Canadian-based Islamicradicals were also rounded upduring the Ressam investigationand are currently imprisoned inthe U.S. and Europe.As speculation mounted that

the attacks were tied to Islamicradicals, a leading U.S. Islamicgroup warned Muslims to takeprecautions against harassmentor abuse. The group urged Amer-ican Muslims to assist in rescueand recovery operations, donateblood and send contributions torelief agencies but also said theyshould take measures againstpossible vigilante retaliation.

In a statement, the group said ithad already received isolated re-ports of harassment and recom-mended that Muslims who weartradition Islamic clothing con-sider staying out of public areasfor the immediate future. In ad-dition, it said the Muslim-Ameri-can community should requestadditional police patrols in the vicinity of mosques and postmosque members as sentries atentrances and parking areas dur-ing prayer services.

The question is not just whowould do such a thing, but why?There may be no good answer.But if Islamic militants are re-sponsible, it could stem fromanger over the detention of Sheikal-Rahman, U.S. support for Is-rael or it could be retaliation for

the recent convictions of a bandof jihad radicals, includingRessam and four other binLaden followers awaiting sen-tencing for conspiring with theSaudi dissident to kill Ameri-cans.

The World Trade Center bomb-ing of 1993 was a relatively sim-ple operation. Militants simplydrove a truck filled with explo-sives into the parking lot beneaththe building and walked away. Bycontrast, yesterdays attack wasremarkably complex, demon-strating a degree of sophistica-tion and planning never seen be-fore in the world of internationalterrorism.

Our concern must be thatthese attacks are only the start ofa far-reaching campaign againstthe U.S. and its main allies, in-cluding Britain and Saudi Ara-bia, Janes reported. Althoughtodays devastation in Manhat-tan and Washington has beenappalling, the real fear is whether extremist Islamicgroups could ever get access tonuclear material and build arudimentary but nonethelessdeadly device.

Afghanistan borders the for-mer Soviet Union, the successorstates of which have undoubtedly

the worlds least secure stock-piles of weapons grade nuclearmaterial. Until today, the horrorsthat have struck the U.S. mightalso have been considered thestuff of fiction. Now it must beseen as a potential reality.

National Post


HASAN JAMALI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A Yemeni police boat patrols around the U.S.S. Cole. Osama bi n Ladens group claimed responsibility for bombing the ship.

Iwas sitting on my balcony thismorning, editing, when the sil-ver belly of a commercial jet sud-denly flew right over my apart-ment building. It was headed to-ward the southwest over Green-wich Village rather than north-east over the Hudson or EastRivers, the customary aviationroute toward La Guardia Air-port.

My God, I thought. Hes head-ing for an emergency landing atNewark. I hope he makes it. Thesituation was serious enough thatI checked the alarm clock insidemy apartment. It was 8:46 a.m.

I heard no explosion and figuredthe plane was OK. A few minuteslater, I saw some puffs of light, greysmoke. They were not the columnsof black fumes I would have ex-pected, so I thought little of it.

The phone rang about 15 min-

utes later. Put on the TV, afriend said. Two planes crashed

into the World Trade Center. Iclicked on the tube and saw theimages that are chilling Ameri-cans from coast to coast.

I walked two blocks west to Uni-versity Place, a normally quietstreet filled with restaurants, abowling alley and New York Uni-versity students. It was filled thismorning with spectators whospilled into what little trafficflowed on the streets. Onewoman holding a coffee cup inher right hand covered hermouth with her left and cried.

Even as the wounded are healedand the dead are recovered fromthe rubble at the World TradeCenter, the Pentagon and nearSomerset, Penn., the UnitedStates must focus on two words:

restraint and ruthlessness.In the face of this calamity, offi-cials will be tempted to restrictcivil liberties. Indeed, as I writethese words, I am stuck on Man-hattan Island with several millionother Americans. Tunnels andbridges are sealed. Rail and busservice has been suspended. And,of course, our three airports areclosed, along with every other do-mestic airfield. The only planes

aloft here are U.S. fighter jets thathave begun to patrol over head.

These measures are under-standable right now, especially ifauthorities hope to catch poten-

tial suspects in these high crimes.But over the long term, political leaders must exercise extremecaution about overreacting tothese staggeringly severe circum-stances. Those who have calledfor government control of Inter-net encryption technology, moni-toring of the movements of cell-phone users and similar surveil- lance techniques will demandthese and other steps in the after-math of these disasters. In thename of fighting terrorism, suchsteps may be appealing. Howev-er, U.S. leaders and voters alikeshould be very careful about em-bracing measures today that willleave citizens less free in the longrun in an effort to catch criminalsin the here and now. The Bill ofRights must not collapse with theTwin Towers.

But U.S. officials should feel nosuch restraint about retaliatingagainst whatever group or nationperpetrated these acts of war. Any country that gave aid andcomfort to whoever did thesethings should be treated as if itspresident were at the controls ofone of the flying bombs that sotragically found its target.

Freedom itself was attackedthis morning by a faceless cow-ard, and freedom will be defend-ed, U.S. President George Bushdeclared this afternoon.While the President spoke with

firmness, he underestimatedthese villains. Cowards quake be-neath their beds. These explo-sions are the work of audacious,

disciplined, motivated killers.These people are not cowardly.They are evil. They and any statesthat sponsored them should beidentified and crushed, merci-lessly and soon.

The United States is worldrenowned as the land of BritneySpears, reality TV, snowboardsand boundless plenty. For that andmore, we are loved by most. But attimes like these, we also must berespected and even feared.

Let no one forget that in addi-tion to being home to a fat, happyand well-entertained people, theUnited States remains Earthssurviving superpower. We pos-sess the power to assert ourselvesand our interests by any meansnecessary, conventional or atom-

ic. It is incumbent on Americascivilian and military leaders tolocate the guilty parties and teachthem this lesson good and hard with all the gentility of theIsraeli army in a rotten mood.A battle cry is in order: Find

them and flatten them. New York commentator DeroyMurdock is a columnist with theScripps Howard News ServiceScripps Howard News Service

The U.S. must assertits authority as

the worlds survivingsuperpower

Restraintat home,but ruthless

resolve

THE BILL OF RIGHTS

MUST NOT COLLAPSE

WITH THE TOWERS

CRAIG HOWARD / NEWARK STAR-LEDGER

Spectators in Hoboken, N.J., watch the World Trade Center b urn.

D E R O Y M U R D O C Ki n N e w Y o r k

Boston authoritiessearching for cell


Although todays devastation in Manhattan and Washington has been appalling,

the real fear is whether extremist Islamic groups could ever get access to nuclear

material and build a rudimentary but nonetheless deadly device


7/8

T his is not crime. This is war.One of the reasons there areterrorists out there capable andaudacious enough to carry outthe deadliest attack on the Unit-ed States in its history is that,while they have declared war onthe America, America has re-sponded (with the exception of afew useless cruise missile at-tacks on empty tents in thedesert) by issuing subpoenas.

U.S. Secretary of State ColinPowells first reaction to the dayof infamy was to pledge tobring those responsible to jus-tice.

This is exactly wrong. FranklinRoosevelt responded to PearlHarbor by pledging to bringJapan to its knees. He did notpledge to bring the commanderof Japanese naval aviation to tri-al.

The U.S. folly was Lockerbie.The West spent a decade bring-ing two peons to stand trial forthe murder of hundreds of Americans on Pan Am flight103. It was flabby, legalistic andabsurd. It set a terrible example,and issued an invitation to ter-rorists to carry their war to the

United States.You bring criminals to justice;

you rain destruction on combat-tants. This is a fundamental dis-tinction that can no longer beavoided.

The bombings of Sept. 11,2001, must mark a turning

point. War was long ago de-clared on the United States. Un-til the United States declares war in return, America shall

have thousands of more inno-cent victims.We no longer have to search

for a name for the post-ColdWar era. It will henceforth beknown as the age of terrorism.Organized terror has shownwhat it can do: execute the sin-gle greatest massacre in Ameri-can history, shut down thegreatest power on the globe, andsend its leaders into under-ground shelters. All this, with-out even resorting to chemical,biological or nuclear weapons ofmass destruction.

This is a formidable enemy. Todismiss it as a bunch of cow-ards perpetrating senselessacts of violence is complacentnonsense. People willing to killthousands of innocents whilethey kill themselves are notcowards. They are deadly, vi-cious warriors and need to betreated as such.

Nor are their acts of violencesenseless. They have a very spe-cific aim: To avenge alleged his-torical wrongs and to bring thegreat American satan to itsknees. Nor is the enemy facelessor mysterious.We do not know for sure who

gave the final order, but weknow what movement it comesfrom. The enemy has identifieditself in public and openly. Ourdelicate sensibilities have pre-vented us from pronouncing itsname.

Its name is radical Islam. NotIslam as practised peacefully by

millions of the faithful aroundthe world. But a specific fringepolitical movement, dedicated toimposing its fanatical ideologyon its own societies and destroy-ing the society of its enemies, thegreatest of which is the UnitedStates.

Israel, too, is an affront to radi-cal Islam, and thus of coursemust be eradicated. But it is thesmallest of fish.

For this fringe group, the heartof the beast with its militaryin Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkeyand the Persian Gulf; with a cul-ture that corrupts Islamic youth; with an economy andtechnology that dominates the world is the United States.That is why it was struck so sav-agely.

How do we know? Who elsetrains cadres of fanatical suicidemurderers who go to theirdeaths smiling, as did the sui-cide bomber in Beirut whodrove his truck into the Marinebarracks, killing 240 Americansin 1982? Why do they smile?Because they are dying not out

of desperation but out of convic-tion. They have been taught tobelieve that murder/martyrdomgives them immunity from painand gives them immediate entryto heaven, where 71 black-eyedvirgins await their pleasure. Ofcourse, this sounds grotesque.But we must not avert our eyesfrom facts.And the fact is that the average

terrorist does not co-ordinatefour hijackings within one hour.Nor fly a plane into the tiny sil-houette of a single building. Forthat, you need skilled pilotsseeking martyrdom. There isnot a large pool to draw from.

These are the shock troops of

the enemy. And the enemy hasmany branches. Hezbollah inLebanon, Hamas and IslamicJihad in Israel, the Osama binLaden organization headquar-tered in Afghanistan, and vari-ous Arab liberation fronts based in Damascus. (One ofthese latter groups, the Democ-ratic Front for the Liberation ofPalestine, immediately claimedresponsibility for the atrocity.)And then there are the govern-ments: Iran, Iraq, Syria and

Libya among them. Which one was responsible for our PearlHarbor? We will find out soonenough.

But when we do, there shouldbe no talk of bringing these peo-ple to swift justice, as KarenHughes dismayingly promisedmid-afternoon yesterday in thefirst official word to come out ofthe White House.An open act of war demands a

military response, not a judicialone.

But a military response againstwhom? It is absurd to make waron the individuals who sendthese people. But the terroristscannot exist in a vacuum. Theyneed a territorial base of sover-eign protection.

For 30 years, we have avoidedthis truth. If bin Laden was be-hind this, then Afghanistan isour enemy. Any country thatharbours and protects him isour enemy. We must carrytheirwar to them.

We should seriously consider aCongressional declaration of war. That convention seemsquaint, unused since the SecondWorld War. But there are twovirtues to declaring war: (1) Itannounces our seriousnessesboth to our people and to the en-emy, and (2) It gives us certainrights as belligerents (of block-ade, for example) that we wouldnot otherwise have.

The long peace is over. Wesought this war no more thanwe sought war with Nazi Ger-

many and Imperial Japan orCold War with the Soviet Union.But when pressed upon thegreatest generation, it rose tothe challenge. The question is:Will we?

The Washington PostWriters Group

BY S E AN M . M A L O N E Y ,M I C H A E L A. HE N N E S S Y ,A N D S C OT RO B E R T S O N

An Attack Against One is an At-tack Against All.

Thus reads Article 5 of TheNorth Atlantic Treaty, which hastied Canada, the United States,and our European allies togetherin an alliance for peace since1949. Yesterdays attacks in NewYork and Washington are an at-tack against us all. We must notforget that the United States isCanadas closest ally and tradingpartner, that our relationship is aclose one. We stood shoulder toshoulder with them against Fas-cist and Communist totalitarian-ism during the Second and ColdWars. We assisted the Americansin the aftermath of the devastat-ing Hurricane Andrew, and theyhelped the citizens of Ontarioand Quebec get back on their feetafter the ice storm of 1998. De-spite our differences, we havecommon interests, a commonlanguage, common heritage and acommon culture as embla-zoned on the Peace Arch: We arechildren of a common mother.Americas friends must stand up

and do what it takes to bring tojustice, even summary and pre-emptive justice, to those impli-cated in this attack. The enemywe face together is anti-modernmedieval religious fanaticism.The faceless enemy that struckyesterday at the sinews of our so-ciety with such cunning precision

has threatened the foundationsof everything we have accom-plished in the past 200 years: thefree movements of goods, peo-ples, ideas and confidence.

One has to ask: What is to begained by such an attack? Ni-hilism? Martyrdom? But what

god would welcome such mar-

tyrs? What is lost by such an at-tack?Our enemy has struck at the

nerve centre of internationaltrade, the foundations of our con-tinuing prosperity, the trust inour international communica-tions and travel and our willing-ness to openly embrace diversecultures. In the space of less thantwo hours, the casualty level hasexceeded geometrically that ofthe Japanese attack on Pearl Har-bor in 1941, and may exceed totalU.S. losses in the long, drawn-outwar in Vietnam.

Too many analysts of interna-tional affairs and those within thesoft-line intelligentsia scoff at thescenarios postulated in the fictionof Dale Brown and Tom Clancy or by the intelligence community,casually dismissing such thingsas pulp fiction for those armchairwarriors with too much testos-terone on board.

Tragically, those of us who ana-lyze homeland defence issues havewarned about the possibility ofsuch actions and have advocatedincreased vigilance, were todayproven correct. Those who thinkCanada is somehow removedfrom these tragic events should re-examine the realities of the situa-tion. We had better pray the perpe-trators did not stage through ourcountry on their way to murderour U.S. friends and brothers.

Today, the border is closed andmay never be re-opened with theease of access we took for grantedfor so many years. We cannot re-

main a porous conduit for thoseseeking to violently dismantleour civilization. The authors teach in the WarStudies Program at the RoyalMilitary College of Canada inKingston, Ont.

National Post

D7NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 , 2001

The faceless enemy that struck yesterday at the sinews of our society

with such cunning precision has threatened the foundations of everything

we have accomplished in the past 200 years

ALI HASHISHO / REUTERS

As children dance around him, a Palestinian guerrilla fires from his rifle at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near the port city of Sidon in southern Lebanon, to celebrate yesterdays terrorist attacks against U.S. targets.

C H A R L E SK R A U T H A M M E R

These bombingsmust mark

a turning pointin U.S. policy

Dont be afraidto call it war

THE ENEMY HAS

IDENTIFIED ITSELF IN

PUBLIC AND OPENLY.

ITS NAME IS

RADICAL ISLAM

A N A L Y S I S

An attackagainst us all


8/8

The 70,000 people of

Hudsons Bay Company

are overcome with grief at

the tragic events that occurredin the United States

on September 11.

Our thoughts are with the victims

and their families and we extend

our deepest sympathies.

A special section from September 12, 2001

Documents

Transcript of A special section from September 12, 2001