If al-Qaeda, or whatever they choose to call themselves this week, were a person it would not be James Bond or Che Guevara but Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. It exists now to produce publicity about its own existence. The attacks in Kenya yesterday were designed to prove that the terrorist network is “back in business”. If so, then it has returned as a barrow boy, not a high street retailer.
While most of those in Intelligence are, quite rightly, cautious souls, many will privately concede a sense of confidence about the War on Terror. Ironically, in the light of yesterday’s events, the organisation that has come closest to admitting openly what is thought behind closed doors is Mossad — the Israeli intelligence service. This plausible analysis indicates that the events in and around Mombasa are really a symptom of the weakness of al-Qaeda. If not a cry for help, they are a cry for hype, and they realised that objective.
There are three reasons for deeming this conclusion credible. The first is that Kenya is not merely a “soft target” but a reflection of al-Qaeda’s soft resources. If it could really set out its stall, it would stage a “spectacular” in the heart of London, Paris or an American city. There has been much talk lately of an increase in “chatter”, picked up by Intelligence, about al-Qaeda activity. If the operation in Kenya was the source of that “chatter”, it was the terrorist equivalent of small talk. For al-Qaeda to run a terrorist campaign in East Africa is akin to a man knocking down a gnome in his own garden.
The second sign of frailty is the target. If al-Qaeda is really to disturb Washington, it needs to murder Americans in large numbers. The Bali bombing, tragically, used Australians as a surrogate for Uncle Sam’s teenagers. An assault aimed at Israelis is hardly imaginative. It is al-Qaeda’s version of a “core vote” strategy: it will appeal to sections in the Middle East, but not to a wider audience.
It was also a less than impressive enterprise. Despite some security measures, the Paradise Hotel was a sitting duck for al-Qaeda. The airfield at Mombasa was not the most challenging target either. Yet on the initial casualty figures, it would seem that the terrorists sacrificed two or three of their own volunteers to murder, sadly, a small number of Kenyans and three Israeli citizens. In the cruel cost-benefit analysis of terror, this was not much of a bargain. It hardly compares with the 3,000 killed in exchange for 19 lost in the suicide-hijackings of September 11. The average bus blast in Israel results in more casualties than yesterday’s attack.
The “missile” assault on the Arkia charter flight was plainly designed to secure headlines. It was also, despite advantageous terrain, a failure. This indicates that either the equipment used could never have hit the aircraft, in which case the incident was a “made for television” episode, or that the plot was executed ineptly.
This fits with an established pattern in which al-Qaeda is finding it increasingly hard to engage in serious long-term planning for its schemes (because infiltration and surveillance have become more focused) or is obliged to rely on local volunteers to conduct such atrocities, rather than professional commanders. With the sincerest respect to those who lost loved ones, the terrorism witnessed yesterday was, compared with the ambitions of those who ordered it, a speck, not a spectacular.
I do not mean to portray al-Qaeda as if it were the Royal Ballet with attitude. But the greater danger is that of exaggerating its power. The most striking aspect of Bob Woodward’s new book, Bush at War, is how swiftly the CIA got its act together, from a standing start, in Afghanistan once George W. Bush decreed that money was no object and that all the ridiculous rules constraining the agency imposed in the 1970s no longer applied. These detailed restrictions had all but prevented the CIA from eliminating hostile foreign nationals. I do not claim to be an expert in this sphere but I had thought that removing those you do not care for was sort of the point of organisations such as the CIA.
In truth, al-Qaeda is more exposed to its enemies than vice versa. In his extraordinary address to Congress on September 20, 2001, President Bush said of his War on Terror that “much of it will be secret, even in success”. He meant every word of that sentence. The United States either directly, or often through useful associates, has slit many a throat in many a place in the past year. The heavy payload dropped by the unmanned Predator probe on six al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen at the beginning of this month was a rare public example of an ongoing exercise. The unstated policy of the Bush Administration in this conflict can be described as “incremental assassination”. And by God, not only is it suitably ruthless, it is working.
All of this has to be kept in mind when assessing al-Qaeda. There is many a dramatic report, for example, which outlines breathlessly that, despite all the efforts of governments to clamp down on their cash, the terrorists still have access to a treasure trove of “about $50 million”. Now, do not misunderstand me, $50 million is more than loose change. If any of you would like to donate such a sum to me, I will happily take it. To put it in context, though, one single CIA agent, as Mr Woodward observes in his tome, wandered around Afghanistan and distributed a similar sum in cash in order to buy off, successfully, the locals.
At the height of the Profumo affair almost 40 years ago, Lord Hailsham of exploded and protested that “a great party is not to be brought down because of a squalid affair between a woman of easy virtue and a proven liar”. Advanced democracies, similarly, are not about to be usurped by a small bunch of fanatical fruitcakes.
Al-Qaeda is not really, despite its publicity drive, “back in business”. It is, instead, in its last desperate stage before US bailiffs arrive unannounced at the door and seize somewhat more than just the furniture.
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