Politics of the desperate

The terrorist attack on the United States has provoked a unique response. But the act and its motives are part of a pattern with a long history, as EUGENE BINGHAM reports.

Beneath the mountains of words and the torrent of pictures about the United States' war on terrorism and the posturing of the Taleban this week, it is easy to lose the scale of the human toll.

Think about it. At least 6566 people are dead because of the terrorist act of a small cell of hijackers. That includes the 6333 people presumed dead at the World Trade Center in New York alone. And that is just the update from yesterday, not the final death toll.

The description "unprecedented" fails to convey the gut-wrenching scale. It is a figure without parallel in the history of terrorism.

It has drawn a response that is also without parallel. Within hours, President George W. Bush swore the United States would use the imposing might of its military power in retribution. Now he is marshalling an international posse to strike back.

But the attack is not a random lashing out at the hated Western foe. This calculated use of terrorism as a political weapon draws on a long inheritance, and a violent response by the United States is part of the calculation. If the United States causes high civilian losses and creates more martyrs, Osama bin Laden and his heirs will reap a political reward.

While bin Laden's methods have caused public expressions of revulsion throughout Arab and Muslim states, the grievances that motivate him are shared by hundreds of millions.

The issues with which bin Laden justifies his actions - US support for the Israeli occupation, the continuing military presence of the US military in the Middle East, economic sanctions by the West - are widely supported. The solution may ultimately have to be political rather than military.

Stephen Zunes, an associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a Middle East analyst, says the West cannot ignore the fact that these feelings resonate widely, even if only a minority support terrorist actions.

"A tiny minority," said Zunes, "but a tiny minority among 300 million Arabs can be enough to recruit a few hundred people who are willing to kill themselves and a lot of people with them."

Zunes says terrorists usually have a dangerous mix of psychopathic tendencies and political frustrations.

"It's an act of the powerless who are frustrated and cannot advance their cause by more traditional means. I think it's no accident that so many terrorists come out of the Middle East where there are very few democratic institutions [through which they can] express their grievances."

Terrorism's very roots can be traced to the Middle East. Acts of terror for political means began to emerge during the Roman rule of Palestine, when a Jewish order called the Zealots committed random murders in busy crowds to stir an uprising. At the beginning of the second millennium, a Shi'ite Muslim sect called the Assassins would kill their Sunni rivals to purify Islam.

The use of the word terrorism comes from the French Revolution, when gangs executed people deemed enemies of the revolution.

As a tactic it has evolved and changed, according to the cause, throughout the ages. But it emerged as a global phenomenon in the 20th century, particularly the second half. And it was by no means the exclusive tool of Middle Easterns.

Independence movements such as that of the Basque separatists in Spain, indigenous people in places such as Africa, shaking off the clutches of their colonial rulers, and fanatics with a warped view of the world, such as Timothy McVeigh, all used terrorism.

Some of them will forever have a place in the annals of evil, but not all of them are so regarded by history. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And it is not always easy to distinguish which is which.

The Irish leader Michael Collins led a band of guerrillas called the Irish Volunteers, which later took the name the Irish Republican Army during the 1920s. When a movie about his life emphasised the statesman-like aspect of his character, supporters of Britain's continued role in Northern Ireland criticised the film as glorifying the IRA, the notorious group whose bombings caused widespread panic throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Others whose organisations have carried out terrorist attacks have gone on to stride the world stage. Leaders of the FLN in Algeria formed the first post-colonial government after a bloody campaign against their French rulers. Some of Israel's first prime ministers headed the Zionist terrorist groups in the 1940s. Even Nelson Mandela's ANC used some terrorist tactics during its fight against apartheid in South Africa, though such tactics were denounced by many within the party.

A marked change that did occur in the second half of the 20th century was the increasing toll of civilian casualties. .

Algeria's FLN provided an early example of widespread and deliberate targeting of civilians when in 1955 it changed its policy of only attacking military and government targets and turned on ordinary men, women and children. It marked a turning point in the country's war of independence and inspired other rebel groups.

In the late 1960s terrorism changed shape again. People's social and political awareness grew while technology, communications, and media advances made terror a weapon that could attract attention out of proportion with its actual effects.

In 1968, Palestinian militants hijacked an Israeli El Al plane and forced it to divert to Algiers. The hostages were held for 40 days. In 1970, Palestinian gunmen forced three planes with a total of 400 people on board to fly to the desert in Jordan. They blew up the planes after releasing most of the hostages. In 1974, the US-based Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped American publishing heiress Patty Hearst - then promptly converted her to their cause.

The Basque group ETA began its independence campaign of bombings and assassinations by killing a Spanish secret police chief in San Sebastian in 1968. Elsewhere in Europe, the IRA began fighting more ferociously. Though the IRA has since embarked on a peace process, republican breakaway groups remain a threat.

In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers have become a feared force since the early 1980s and have been more prolific at using suicide attacks than even the Palestinians.

In Africa, Uganda continues to be brutalised by the Lord's Resistance Army, a Christian group that has become one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world.

By most common definitions, terrorism is an act carried out by a small politically motivated group that does not have the resources or the numbers to mount a regular war.

But accusations of state-sponsored terrorism are not uncommon. Iran - itself accused of supporting terrorists such as Hizbollah - has claimed to be a victim. When a US ship opened fire on a civilian Iran Air plane over the Gulf in 1988, Iran denounced it as a terrorist act.

Israel, an undoubted victim of terrorism, stands accused itself because of its strikes on Palestinians. Telephone bombs, booby-trapped cars, helicopter gunships and killing squads have wiped out militants in the West Bank and Gaza during the latest push.

There have been suggestions that bin Laden's handiwork has been carried out in cahoots with Iraq. Former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey has warned against blaming bin Laden alone for last week's attacks.

Soon after the attacks he suggested there was some evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was linked to the four hijackings, as well as to the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Woolsey's theory was given more credence this week when it emerged that one of the suspected hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had met Iraqi intelligence officials in Europe early this year.

Whoever was involved in the attacks, bin Laden has created a reputation as a terrorist without equal, if for no other reason than the sheer scale and audacity of the plans he has pulled off. His brand of terrorism involves masterminding attacks against the world's sole superpower - something he is forced to carry out from an adopted homeland, given that his own country has disowned him.

How can he possibly achieve anything?

An Australian Government expert on terrorism, who asked not to be named, said history revealed many organisation who had succeeded through terrorism.

"In some cases, groups have done deals with the government. The more moderate elements of Eta have done a deal with the Government. The Palestinians, through terrorism, managed to get the Oslo peace accord."

Bin Laden regards the withdrawal of the Americans from Beirut after attacks on US installations there in the 1980s a success too.

But in President Bush's own words, his new global coalition will hunt down Osama bin Laden and take him dead or alive. It will punish those who harbour terrorists. It has declared war on terrorism.

This is no ordinary battle. Bin Laden is the declared target but his network, al Qaeda (the base), is no ordinary terrorist group. Unlike the anti-colonialist campaigners who had a narrowly defined aim, bin Laden is working across national boundaries and with a diffuse organisation.

David Long, a former official in the US State Department and an expert on terrorism, says bin Laden is a facilitator.

"Is Osama bin Laden the exclusive font of terrorist evil? No," Long told the New Yorker. "This is an informal brotherhood we are seeing now, whose members can draw on each other. Bin Laden's organisation is not a terrorist organisation in the traditional sense. It's more a clearing house from which other groups elicit funds, training, and logistical support. It's a chameleon, an amoeba, which constantly changes shape according to the whims of its leadership, and that leadership is Osama bin Laden."



So can terrorism ever be thwarted? German and Italian authorities stamped out the leftist Baader-Meinhof and the Red Brigades during the 1970s with an aggressive effort to arrest their leaders. But Stephen Zunes says these two organisations probably wilted more because they did not have a wide support base.

The Australian source agrees that terrorist organisations usually implode rather than get blown up. "To some extent, what's happened in the past is that groups have lost impetus because people have grown older and less interested in exposing themselves to that kind of lifestyle.

"The Baader-Meinhof (group), for example, wasn't attracting young recruits any more and they all retired. But if you have got an organisation that is attracting young recruits, then you have a continuing existence."

It is accepted that bin Laden has plenty of followers to draw upon. So can he be beaten in this war on terror?

The Australian source is unsure. "It's more a containable situation. You can disrupt and take out some people, but you can't stop it. You can lift the threshold, make it more difficult, but you can't eliminate it."

He believes that in tandem with any military response, the US will have to adapt its Middle Eastern policy, as unpalatable as this may seem to Washington. "I think it is an issue they are going to have to think about," he said.

Taking out bin Laden would have an impact because of his charisma as a leader, but it would not end the problem.

"I can't think of anyone else who has his stature," said the source. "I think it would be a very significant thing if he was taken out. I don't think it would eliminate the problem, but it would certainly set it back a long way - a bit like when Abdullah Ocalan was taken out of the PKK." (Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish organisation, was arrested by Turkish special forces in 1999 after months on the run.)

Rather than die out, bin Laden's network would probably splinter. "That's what happened with the Palestinians back in the 1980s," said the source. "You get elements break off because they have dominant leaders."

Zunes believes the US cannot win if it perceives the fight as a war. He advocates commando-style raids by special forces on specific targets. But he thinks the most important thing Washington can do is shift its foreign policy.

"The issues bin Laden talks about, the vast majority of Arabs agree with. I don't think bin Laden himself would be happy [if American addressed the issues], but I think the number of recruits and collaborators would drop and the ability to maintain a network and do some damage would be substantially weakened.

"If we end up alienating people by overreacting and bombing the bejesus out of some Muslim country, it's going to be harder to curb the problem," said Zules. "If there's any logic to bin Laden's madness it is to provoke an overreaction by the US. This will end up killing a lot of innocent people and the survivors will become the fresh recruits."

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