Connecting the dots

To develop a thorough understanding of the dangers terrorists still pose to the United States, one would need to religiously scour national and international press reports, read between the lines of the government's various threat advisories, and file countless Freedom of Information Act requests for documents both past and present.

Or one can simply read Rohan Gunaratna's new book.

Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (Columbia University Press) is the product of five years' research, in which Gunaratna interviewed more than 200 terrorists and compiled a bibliography that should keep soon-to-be-hired Department of Homeland Security analysts busy for quite some time. The book details al Qaida's history and structure, its surprising number of attempted and actual strikes against U.S. interests over the past decade, and the many dangers that still remain.

Few readers have likely heard of "Oplan Bojinka," for example. That 1995 al Qaida operation, Gunaratna writes, aimed to "destroy 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific, crash an explosive-laden aircraft onto the Pentagon and the CIA headquarters and assassinate President Clinton and Pope John Paul II in Manila." The plot was exposed, but al Qaida "was not vigorously monitored, nor were its leaders hunted down."

Nor was Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" who attempted to bring down a flight from Paris to Miami last December, the patsy portrayed in the press. According to Gunaratna, Reid spent the last half of 2001 traveling through Europe to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cairo and Tel Aviv on al Qaida business--going to Tel Aviv, in fact, to "reconnoiter targets with the intention of striking inside Israel."

Reid's name is not the only one that pops up in unexpected places. Take Ahmad Muhammad Alia al-Hada, a longtime Osama bin Laden associate in Yemen. One of his sons-in-law reportedly helped plan the USS Cole attack and then commanded the cell that hijacked the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, while another killed himself in February when authorities uncovered a plan for him to enter the United States and mount yet another suicide mission. (Gunaratna warns that "the second suicide squad remains undetected as of April 2002.")

In fact, while Inside Al Qaeda warns that bin Laden's network can tap as many as 120,000 "radical Muslims...willing to take up arms," the relatively small group of individuals is tied to a wide range of events. Whether this is reassuring (in that eliminating a core group of insiders could cripple al Qaida) or terrifying (in that a few dozen terrorists are responsible for far more than just Sept. 11, and there are thousands more waiting in the wings) is debatable.

Gunaratna does offer some good news, however. According to Inside Al Qaeda, it was once feared that bin Laden had purchased uranium stolen from Russian army bases, but "intelligence sources now believe that the criminals sold Al Qaeda irradiated canisters....[that had] no military value whatsoever."

An attempt to hijack and crash a plane into Britain's Houses of Parliament on Sept. 11 failed because Heathrow quickly grounded all flights after the World Trade Center and Pentagon were hit. And perhaps most importantly, the author notes, "history shows that most guerrilla and terrorist campaigns last between thirteen and fourteen years." (Al Qaida was formed in the late 1980s.)

"The global challenge," Gunaratna writes, "is how to shorten the life-span of Al Qaeda, the most destructive international terrorist group in history."

Inside Al Qaeda concludes by outlining suggestions--short-, mid- and long-term--for how to do just that. Unfortunately, these remedies are perhaps the least helpful part of the book. "Strangling" terrorist finances, rebutting bin Laden's interpretation of the Koran, and encouraging better "security, intelligence, operational and judicial cooperation" internationally is far easier said than done. And as Gunaratna himself notes, "the threat posed by Al Qaeda will test the international community... to the limit."

All in all, Gunaratna's book is anything but an encouraging read. But problems can be solved only after they are understood, and Inside Al Qaeda offers a crash course on the challenges that lie ahead.