The attacks in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, despite their dramatic and devastating impact, may well be the last gasps of the monster of international Islamist terrorism. The hard facts speak for themselves. Acts of international terrorism fell by almost half from 2001 to 2002 — to the lowest figure since 1969.

Most centres for the study of global terrorism report unprecedented calm. Their analysis is backed by the latest annual US State Department report and an interim study, to be submitted next month to the G8 summit in Annecy. There were 199 “acts of global terrorism” in 2002. There were no acts of terror in the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia, designated as special targets by al-Qaeda.

Almost a hundred of the acts came in five Asian countries: the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Pakistan. Latin America recorded 50 attacks, but half were in one country: Colombia. The Middle East saw twenty-nine attacks, all but seven in the Palestinian territories and Israel. There were nine attacks in Europe and five in Africa.

The only place where attacks on American targets increased was Colombia, where local guerrillas bombed a pipeline owned by a US oil company 41 times. There were only two spectacular attacks: the Bali disco bombing, where more than 200 people died, mostly Australians, and an attack in Tunisia, where a suicide bomber killed 23 tourists, mostly German, near a synagogue.

The dreaded attacks with “dirty bombs”, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear devices did not take place.

But the recent suicide attacks in Morocco and Saudi Arabia have awakened fears that al-Qaeda has returned, uninhibited by the War on Terror. However, al-Qaeda did not invent suicide bombing. The Lebanese Hezbollah, created by Iran and backed by Syria, introduced it in the Muslim world in 1982. (Hezbollah suicide bombers killed more than 1,000 people, including 251 US Marines and 62 French paratroopers in a series of attacks in Lebanon in the 1980s.)

Two Algerian terrorist gangs, the Salafi Group for Preaching and Armed Jihad (SGPAJ) and the Islamic Armed Movement (MIA) have also used the tactic since 1992, claiming thousands of victims.Copycat suicide bombings have also been committed by Islamist groups in Pakistan, India, Indian-held Kashmir, Russia, Chechnya, and, of course, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Al-Qaeda may well be a shorthand term for Islamist terrorism. But there is no evidence that the latest attacks came from al-Qaeda, which is one of more than a dozen Islamist groups present in various countries. The only time they came together was in Khartoum in March 1993 in a conference that elected a nine-man leadership. Osama bin Laden was just one of the nine.

Judging by the internal debate within the Islamist terror movement, al-Qaeda is in disarray, its remaining leaders on the run. Other Islamist terror organisations, however, remain intact.

Several factors explain what looks like a strategic setback for global terror. These include the major powers’ efforts to dry up the funding of terrorist groups. The terrorists have also lost many bases, including those in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The tide may be turning against global terror. But, as the latest attacks show, this does not justify complacency. A good part of that victory was due to vigilance. Various governments loathe revealing the number of terrorist attacks nipped in the bud or stopped in time. Where some numbers are given (as in Pakistan, Israel and France), we see that the underlying curve of terror is not falling as sharply as figures for recorded attacks suggest.

Few, however, in the leadership of the two Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Morocco expected to bear the brunt of terrorism. Saudi leaders had assumed that the kingdom would not be attacked because of an old pledge by bin Laden not to harm his native homeland. The Saudi sense of security had also increased as a result of Washington’s decision last month to withdraw the 5,000 troops stationed in the kingdom, thus meeting one of bin Laden’s demands.

Morocco felt safe if only because, for a decade, it had turned a blind eye to the activities of groups that have killed some 100,000 people in neighbouring Algeria. (Moroccan secret services may even have helped some of the groups to settle old scores with Algeria.) The attacks that killed 75 people, including 28 suicide bombers, put paid to such illusions.

Saudi Arabia and Morocco now know that, as far as terrorism is concerned, they are in the same boat as the “infidel” powers, notably the United States and Britain. It is not enough for Saudi Arabia to observe the most severe version of Islam to escape the wrath of the self-styled custodians of the faith. Nor is Morocco safe because its king advertises himself as a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

The terror that the world faces cannot be understood in theological terms. That its perpetrators claim to represent Islam is neither here nor there. (Proving a thousand times that Islam is not what they say it is will change nothing.) Nor is it about the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, or Palestine or poverty or the clash of civilisations or “Arab humiliation”, whatever that means.

The only way to deal with such terror groups is to treat them as the criminals they are. It is important that they, too, be targeted with the same determination shown against al-Qaeda since September 11, 2001.

There are still many terrorists out there, plotting attacks. Americans may still have to keep their duct tape handy. But this should not prevent us from acknowledging what is a spectacular victory over the monster of global terror.

Amir Taheri is author of The Cauldron — The Middle East Behind the Headlines

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