Los Angeles Times (CA)

June 6, 2004

Killing the Hydra
Only attacks on its ideas can defeat a network like Al Qaeda

Author: Marc Sageman; Marc Sageman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at
Penn State, was a CIA case officer working undercover in the Afghan-Soviet
war from 1987 to 1989. He is the author of "Understanding Terror Networks."

If you follow such things, you're probably aware that two-thirds of Al
Qaeda's leadership has been captured or killed. So why, then, do terrorist
operations continue to escalate? Americans love to have identifiable
enemies, and it is tempting to see Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab Zarqawi or
any of the other Al Qaeda leaders as the faces of evil, the ones
responsible for terrorism. If only they could be removed from the equation,
the logic goes, then terrorism would end. But that's not how Al Qaeda
works. It never really did, and it certainly doesn't today.

Al Qaeda has always been part of a loose-knit, violent, Islamic revivalist
social movement held together by a common idea: the global Islamist jihad.
It is a loose network with fuzzy boundaries.

For a brief period, when the Taliban provided sanctuary for him in
Afghanistan, Bin Laden was able to establish a headquarters and training
camps to school jihadists in terrorist operations. Formal induction
procedures were implemented, and a central staff of experts was on hand to
plan large-scale operations. Through their control of training and support,
Bin Laden and his lieutenants were able to grab the reins of the movement,
giving rise to the illusion that it was a more formal hierarchy than it
actually was. Under Bin Laden's leadership, Al Qaeda became involved in the
careful planning of sophisticated, long-term operations, like the 1998 U.S.
embassy bombings in Africa and the 9/11 attacks.

But the Afghan sites, which gave Al Qaeda its control over the movement,
were also its Achilles' heel because they became specific military targets.
After 9/11, U.S. and allied forces destroyed all identifiable terrorist
targets: training camps, residential compounds and support facilities.
Communications were disrupted. The network lost much of its internal glue
and reverted to being small clumps of terrorists loosely connected to each
other.

Today, there is no longer a formal initiation into the movement, and there
is no fixed number of individuals who are terrorists. Rather, there are a
few full-time terrorists among a pool of people sympathetic to their
ideology. The number available to carry out acts of terrorism fluctuates
according to local grievances and the international situation. Far from
having a formal command structure, wherein followers strictly obey orders
from above, these networks are self-organized from the bottom up and
demonstrate a great deal of local initiative and flexibility. Like the
Internet, they function very well with little coordination from the top.

Gaps in the network don't last long. If a leader is eliminated, the most
aggressive terrorists step up to fill the void. A successful operation
against the West attracts eager followers to its perpetrator. It's a team
effort, and the player with the hot hands gets the ball. Right now, Zarqawi
is hot, and his successes against Americans in Iraq have attracted
attention. His growing reputation has generated a following and made him a
de facto leader. So although two-thirds of the 2001 leadership has indeed
been eliminated, a new leadership has been reconstituted, one that is more
widely dispersed and more aggressive than the old one.

There is good news and bad news in all this. The lack of central support
and planning now prevents the execution of large-scale, sophisticated and
costly operations. But at the same time, we're seeing operations that are
more frequent, reckless and hurried -- and they can wreak havoc. From Saudi
Arabia to Madrid to Jakarta, we're seeing destructive attacks that were
planned, supported and carried out by local operators without control from
above.

This new wave of terrorist operations demonstrates the flexibility and
resilience of the network and its ability to adapt to new circumstances. As
the West has hardened itself as a target, Al Qaeda and its loosely
affiliated partners have reverted to attacking local, softer targets in
countries with lax anti-terrorist policies. In some regions -- including
the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Yemen, Algeria and Morocco -- Islamic terrorists have successfully
converted deep-seated local grievances into full-blown insurgencies.

U.S. mismanagement of postwar Iraq is rejuvenating this Islamist revivalist
social movement worldwide. Potential terrorists are attracted to Iraq,
where a collection of local jihads may coalesce into a more united,
international one, just as occurred in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

But despite a re-energized movement fueled by strong anti-U.S. sentiments,
it is unlikely that the U.S. will again be the victim of such a devastating
and sophisticated operation on its soil. Post-9/11 vigilance has made the
U.S. homeland a difficult target. And indigenous Al Qaeda cells failed to
take root in the U.S. Before Sept. 11, Al Qaeda activities in the U.S. were
largely limited to raising money. The rare Americans attracted to Al
Qaeda's ideology left the U.S. for Afghanistan, which meant that when it
came time for the attacks of 2001, terrorists had to be imported.

Americans have fretted about the possibility of "sleeper cells," but there
is little or no evidence that they exist here. In fact, true sleepers --
fully operational agents who remain undercover and inactive for a long
period to escape detection before being reactivated to carry out an
operation -- are extremely rare. Al Qaeda-style terrorism is a group
phenomenon. Without the support of close friends or family, it is difficult
to sustain the motivation that drives terrorism.

How do we fight such fuzzy, idea-based terrorist networks? We've already
hit the hard targets that can be taken out in military actions. Now we must
move on to a more difficult phase. Idea-based networks can only be attacked
through a war of ideas. The jihadist vision that has inspired terrorism
must be taken on, and Muslims worldwide must be engaged to help in the
fight. The aim is to alter Muslims' perception that their interests are
hostile to the West. This demands a two-prong strategy: a negative one,
aimed at de-legitimizing terrorist ideas, and a positive one, aimed at
promoting an alternative vision of a just and fair Islamic society living
in harmony with the West.

This war of ideas promises to be a long war of narratives, fought on a
battlefield of interpretations. But it is the only thing that can work.

Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times