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International: Al-Qaida developments (pub. March 19, 2007)

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Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao on Feb. 28 denied that Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida’s fugitive leader, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were hiding in north-western Pakistan and that their terrorist network was establishing camps near the country’s mountainous border area with Afghanistan, thereby rejecting claims to the contrary made by Mike McConnell, the US director of national intelligence, on Feb. 27.


Immediate Context

US-led military forces and security services had been leading a concerted hunt for Osama bin Laden, and other members of al-Qaida, since October 2001, when the USA and UK launched a military campaign against the Talibaan government in Afghanistan and suspected al-Qaida camps located within the country (Operation Enduring Freedom).  Military action against Afghanistan was launched by the US-led forces in response to the devastating terrorist attacks upon the USA in New York and Washington DC on Sept. 11, 2001, for which the US government held al-Qaida operatives responsible.  The military campaign against Afghanistan heralded the start of the USA’s "war against terror", a vague label given to a series of domestic security and foreign policies introduced by the US government in the wake of the terrorist atrocities and which were apparently designed to prevent further attacks.  Pakistan was deemed crucial by analysts in the US-led "war against terror", not least because the country had been a close ally of the Talibaan regime and it had for many years supplied the hardline Islamic movement with economic and military aid since it assumed power in 1996.  Despite US-led forces securing the strategically important Afghan cities of Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul, and Herat, in November 2001, bin Laden remained at large in November 2006, when UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visited UK troops stationed at Camp Bastion in Lashkar Gah (the regional capital of the Afghan province of Helmand) and after a resurgence of Talibaan attacks.


Reaction and Outlook

Pakistani President Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf said on Feb. 28 that he would take "stiff action" to expel any foreign militants operating in Pakistan’s mountainous (and porous) border regions, adding that "these people", who were "putting Pakistan in danger", should "go and leave" or "be dealt with".  McConnell, who revealed the US claims about bin Laden’s alleged whereabouts during a hearing of the US Senate armed services committee, said US intelligence suggested that al-Qaida remained a threat and that its members were committed to carrying out "heinous attacks" similar to those launched against the USA on Sept. 11, 2001.


Historical Context

Al-Qaida gained global notoriety and near saturation media coverage after the terrorist attacks against the USA in September 2001, but Western intelligence services (including the CIA) had for around two decades supported bin Laden and his associates in the Afghan Mujaheddin (a nascent al-Qaida network) in its fight against Soviet forces, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979.  Following the final withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was later arrested because of his opposition to the deployment of US-led forces within the kingdom, which contained some of Islam’s holiest sites, during and after the Gulf War of 1990-91.  After his arrest by the Saudi authorities, bin Laden fled to Sudan, which was at the time under the control of a hardline Muslim regime, before returning to Afghanistan in 1996, after US pressure forced the Sudanese authorities to expel him.  In 1998 bin Laden issued a fatwa (religious order) instructing Muslims to "kill Americans and their allies, civilian and military", before adding that such action was "an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it".  Also in 1998, following the simultaneous attacks on two US embassies in Africa, bin Laden was indicted by a Manhattan court and the US government offered a reward of US$5 million for information leading directly to his capture.  The al-Qaida network was also implicated by the USA in the October 2000 attack in Yemen against the destroyer USS Cole, in which 17 US sailors were killed when a small boat, which was helping the destroyer to moor in Aden harbour, launched a suicide attack.  Although al-Qaida had not launched an attack inside the USA since September 2001, bin Laden’s terrorist network (and other organisations linked with it), had successfully attacked the country’s interests and those of its allies, including Australia, Spain, and the UK.  The US-led occupying forces in Iraq, for example, were frequently subjected to bomb attacks, including suicide attacks, many of which were executed by people linked with, or sympathetic to, the amorphous al-Qaida network.  The attacks continued, despite the killing by US forces in June 2006 of Abu Misab Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq.


Timeline links

  • November 2006 UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visits UK troops fighting in Afghanistan.    
  • September 2006 In a videotape posted on the Internet to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the USA, Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, announces a "blessed union" between al-Qaida and the Algerian Islamist insurgent movement, the Salafi Group for Call and Combat (GSPC).    
  • June 2006 Over 250 police, some armed and some wearing protective suits, raid a house in the Forest Gate district of east London, arresting two brothers of Bangladeshi origin on suspicion that they are making chemical or biological weapons for terrorist purposes.    
  • June 2006 Abu Misab Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, is killed in a US air strike.
  • January 2006 The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television channel broadcasts an audiotape in which Osama bin Laden warns that more attacks against the USA are being prepared.    
  • November 2005 The UK Daily Mirror newspaper reports that US President George W. Bush had wanted to take "military action" against the headquarters of the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel in Doha, the capital of Qatar.    
  • September 2005 UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke publishes the government's new Terrorism Bill, intended to reform and extend previous counter-terrorism legislation in the wake of the bomb attacks in London in July.   
  • May 2005 Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad announces the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who is said to be a communications expert and the current operations chief in Pakistan for al-Qaida.    
  • January 2005 The trial opens in Paris of French-Algerians Djamel Beghal and Kamel Daoudi on charges of being members of an al-Qaida cell based in the French capital which had plotted to attack US targets in France.    
  • December 2004 Iraqi insurgents overrun a police station and set off a car bomb near a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Baghdad, killing up to 30 people, after which Abu Misab Zarqawi, leader of the al-Qaida Organisation for Holy War in Iraq, claims responsibility for the attacks.    
  • November 2004 US President George W Bush is re-elected.    
  • November 2004 It is reported that Saud bin Hamoud al-Otaibi has taken control of the Saudi Arabian branch of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.    
  • October 2004 Statements are broadcast on several Islamist websites saying that militants led by Abu Misab Zarqawi have pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden.    
  • October 2004 The police in Hamburg arrest Mamoun Darkazanli, a businessman with dual German and Syrian nationality, who was said to be "one of the key figures of the al-Qaida terror network" in Europe.    
  • July 2004 The final report of the US National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is issued and offers new evidence of increased contact between Iran and al-Qaida.    
  • June 2004 Hamed Sayed Osman Rabei, known as "Mohamed the Egyptian", the alleged "mastermind" of the train bombings in Madrid in March, is arrested in Italy; Hamed Sayed Osman Rabei is alleged to be an explosives expert and to have worked as a trainer in camps run by the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan.    
  • April 2004 An apparent offer from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to stop encouraging terrorist acts in Europe on condition that governments withdrew their troops from Afghanistan and Iraq is unanimously rejected by European leaders.    
  • March 2004 A group calling itself The Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, in the name of the al-Qaida network, claims responsibility for the detonation of 10 bombs exploded on commuter trains during the morning rush hour in Madrid.   
  • December 2003 Officials in Turkey say the suicide bombings of the UK Consulate, HSBC bank, and two synagogues in Istanbul in November had been orchestrated by a cell of Turkish nationals linked to al-Qaida.    
  • September 2003 An alleged al-Qaida member thought to be responsible for the June suicide bombing of a German army bus was seized in a dawn raid in Kabul (the capital of Afghanistan).      
  • August 2003 Attacks on US soldiers in Iraq are blamed on Saddam loyalists or Islamists linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.    
  • April 2003 The Saudi and US governments announce that nearly all US forces will withdraw from the kingdom within a few months after more than a decade of the USA using Saudi bases as its primary Gulf air presence.    
  • March 2003 The Pakistani police arrest Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, alleged to be the chief of operations of al-Qaida and suspected of being the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the USA.    
  • February 2003 It is reported that Saudi Arabia Interior Minister Prince Nayef ibn Abdul Aziz has announced that the authorities have referred 90 Saudis to trial for suspected links to the al-Qaida network.    
  • December 2002 The Washington Post reports that the governments of Liberia and Burkina Faso had facilitated a plot by al-Qaida to funnel diamonds and weapons through west Africa before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the USA.    
  • November 2002 A co-ordinated attack on Israeli civilians in a hotel in Mombasa and on an Israeli airliner leaving the same Kenyan city is widely attributed to al-Qaida.    
  • November 2002 An unmanned Predator drone aircraft belonging to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fires a rocket at a car in Yemen's Marib province, killing Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harithi, a former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden.      
  • October 2002 The Financial Times quotes a high-profile French investigating magistrate as saying that years of investigation into radical Islamic groups has not produced a "trace" of evidence of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida.    
  • October 2002 In Kuwait a US marine is killed in a shootout with two Kuwaiti civilians; US reports say the assailants have links with al-Qaida.    
  • October 2002 Suspicion quickly falls on the Islamist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), said to be linked to al-Qaida, after a massive bomb blast kills at least 184 people in the Indonesian tourist resort of Kuta on the "paradise" island of Bali, east of the central island of Java.    
  • September 2002 Many US legislators indicate that they find unconvincing the claims by some in the US administration that there is a connection between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaida.    
  • August 2002 The Saudi Arabia foreign ministry confirms that Iran has handed over to the Saudi authorities 16 suspected members of al-Qaida.    
  • June 2002 Sleiman Abou-Gheith, a senior aide to Osama bin Laden, claims that al-Qaida carried out an attack on a synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba in April that killed 21 people, including 14 German tourists.    
  • June 2002 In Morocco seven suspects are charged with plotting to carry out attacks on behalf of al-Qaida in Morocco and on US and UK warships in the Straits of Gibraltar.    
  • April 2002 A truck loaded with natural gas explodes outside the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba in Tunisia, killing 17 people; The Guardian says there is "persuasive evidence" that the attack was carried out by members of al-Qaida.  
  • February 2002 The USA reveals plans to expand the "war on terrorism" to Georgia because of suspicions that fighters allied with the al-Qaida network have fled from Afghanistan and were hiding in Abkhazia.    
  • January 2002 Reports in the Western press indicate that Saudi Arabia and the USA are studying a possible readjustment in the US military presence in the kingdom, in an attempt to ease growing tension between the US and Saudi military establishments.    
  • January 2002 During his State of the Union address, US President George W Bush says that the US-led "war against terror is only beginning", vowing to act against an "axis of evil" formed by Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.; the US military authorities begin transferring al-Qaida and Talibaan detainees to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; a plea of not guilty is entered on behalf of Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, after he declines to enter a plea to six charges of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.   
  • November 2001 In a development unprecedented since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order authorising the establishment of secret military tribunals to try foreign nationals (captured at home or abroad) accused of involvement in terrorism.    
  • November 2001 French anti-terrorist police in Strasbourg arrest six suspected members of an Islamic fundamentalist cell believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden.    
  • November 2001 In the UK, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill is rushed through its main stages in the House of Commons (the lower house of the bicameral UK legislature); a Spanish investigating magistrate names a UK-based Muslim cleric as the European "spiritual leader" of the al-Qaida network headed by Osama bin Laden.   
  • November 2001 Osama bin Laden claims that al-Qaida is in possession of weapons of mass destruction, which he threatens to use only if the USA deploys such weapons first in Afghanistan.    
  • October 2001 It is reported that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida organisation are shifting money and weapons to Somalia.    
  • October 2001 The US Congress approves anti-terrorism legislation, informally known as the Patriot Act; following their conviction in May on charges arising from the simultaneous attacks on US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998, four men are sentenced by a US District Court judge in Manhattan to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole; it is reported that more than $100 million of suspected terrorist assets have been frozen by the governments of the USA and 19 countries since Sept. 11.     
  • October 2001 In response to the refusal of the Talibaan regime to surrender Osama bin Laden and his senior al-Qaida associates unconditionally to the US authorities, US and UK armed forces commence military operations (entitled Operation Enduring Freedom) against Talibaan military targets and suspected al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan.    
  • September 2001 Officials of NATO take the unprecedented step of invoking article five in the NATO charter under which an attack on one member state is considered to be an attack on all 19 members; the largest criminal investigation in history is launched as US law enforcement authorities, and those in some 60 other countries, seek to apprehend individuals associated with the al-Qaida network.    
  • September 2001 Pakistani President Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf addresses the nation to justify his agreement to co-operate with US military action against Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.  
  • September 2001 Suicide attacks are launched against the USA; Congress approves a $40 billion emergency anti-terrorism bill making provision for increased military expenditure; Arab Americans and Asian communities in the USA and other Western countries find themselves to be at risk from racist attacks and verbal abuse.   
  • July 2001 The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1363 (2001) which tightened the sanctions imposed against Afghanistan in December 2000 for refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden to the "appropriate authorities".    
  • July 2001 It is reported that the US ambassador in Pakistan had issued a statement warning Afghanistan that the Talibaan regime will be held responsible if Osama bin Laden launches attacks against US interests.    
  • March 2001 It is reported that a hardline faction of Talibaan military leaders loyal to Osama bin Laden have effectively seized control of the Talibaan military.    
  • February 2001 It is reported that the Talibaan are prepared to allow Osama bin Laden to be tried by a court of Islamic clerics.    
  • November 2000 Three arrests of Kuwaiti nationals in possession of bomb-making materials are announced by the interior ministry in Kuwait, which says that a fourth non-Kuwaiti suspect, later reported to be a Moroccan aide to Osama bin Laden, has escaped to Iran.    
  • October 2000 Ali Mohamed, a former US Army sergeant and reputed associate of Osama bin Laden, pleads guilty in a Manhattan US District Court to five charges relating to the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.    
  • October 2000 Seventeen US sailors are killed and 37 wounded when a small boat--one of several which was helping the destroyer USS Cole to moor in Aden harbour--launches a suicide attack on the ship.    
  • September 2000 In Jordan the State Security Court sentences six Islamic militants to death after they are convicted of manufacturing explosives, cheque fraud and membership of al-Qaida.    
  • December 1999 Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian with alleged links to Osama bin Laden, is arrested in Port Angeles, Washington state, whilst attempting to cross into the USA from Canada. His rented car is found to contain large quantities of fertiliser, timers and military explosives.    
  • November 1999 Suspicion falls on allies of Osama bin Laden six rockets which are fired from home-made launchers in cars in the diplomatic quarter of Islamabad (the capital of Pakistan), injuring a Pakistani security guard.    
  • November 1999 The UN imposes limited sanctions against Afghanistan for refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden to US authorities.    
  • October 1999 The UN Security Council votes to adopt Resolution 1267 (1999) imposing limited sanctions on the Talibaan regime in Afghanistan in an effort to force it to turn over Osama bin Laden.    
  • July 1999 US President Bill Clinton sign an executive order imposing financial sanctions on the Talibaan in retaliation for the movement's alleged support of Osama bin Laden.    
  • May 1999 Security officials in Switzerland allege that Osama bin Laden had organised and financed the 1997 massacre of Western tourists in Luxor, central Egypt.     
  • March 1999 The Far Eastern Economic Review reports that in late February Osama bin Laden had had a violent disagreement with the Talibaan officials responsible for his safety.    
  • February 1999 It is reported that an independent organisation's investigation of the August 1998 US missile attack on a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum had concluded that there was no evidence to link the factory to international terrorism or to Osama bin Laden.    
  • February 1999 The Talibaan announces that the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden are unknown.    
  • January 1999 Osama bin Laden renews his call for a jihad (holy war) against US and British targets, saying that the jihad was justified because of the military action taken by US and UK forces against Iraq in December 1998.    
  • January 1999 During his State of the Union address, US President Bill Clinton warns that the USA must expand its work with Russia, Ukraine and the other former Soviet nations to safeguard nuclear materials and technology "so they never fall into the wrong hands".    
  • December 1998 The USA and the UK carry out a series of air-strikes against Iraq in what they claim is an effort to "degrade" Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's military capabilities.     
  • December 1998 US President Bill Clinton waives some economic sanctions on Pakistan and endorses an IMF/ World Bank programme designed to revive its economy in return for commitments from Pakistan, including its cooperation in the attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden.    
  • November 1998 The Supreme Court of the Talibaan regime announces that Osama bin Laden has been totally exonerated on charges of terrorism and is considered a free man; Talibaan officials insist that no US evidence has been provided to justify the deportation of Osama bin Laden.    
  • November 1998 Osama bin Laden and his associate Mohammed Atef are indicted by a Manhattan federal grand jury in absentia on 238 charges relating to the August 1998 attacks on US embassies in Africa, including 224 murder charges.   
  • October 1998 The director of the Algerian Judiciary Police, Mohammed Isouli accuses Osama bin Laden of supporting Islamic extremist violence in Algeria from his base in Afghanistan.    
  • October 1998 Wadih el Hage, a US citizen and reputed former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden, is indicted in a New York federal court.    
  • August 1998 Co-ordinated bomb attacks are carried out on the US embassies in Nairobi (the Kenyan capital) and Dar es Salaam (the Tanzanian capital).  the USA launches cruise missile attacks against what US officials claim are a terrorist base in Afghanistan and a plant used to make nerve gas ingredients in Sudan.   
  • April 1998 Bill Richardson, the US permanent representative to the UN, denies reports that the USA is prepared to offer recognition to the Talibaan government in return for its delivery of Osama Bin Laden.  
  • November 1997 Up to 68 people are killed and a further 17 injured when Islamic militants ambush two tourist buses near the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor.    
  • April 1996 Four Saudi citizens confess to carrying out a car-bomb attack in November 1995 on the offices of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, revealing that they had spent time and received military training in Afghanistan, and admit to being influenced by messages from the exiled Osama Bin Laden.  
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