Al Qaeda seen shifting to "terror consultant" role

BERLIN, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Emerging details of last week's Istanbul suicide bombings support the idea that al Qaeda is becoming more of a terror "consultancy" and less of a direct actor, security analysts say.

Most see al Qaeda's hand behind the car bombs that blew up two synagogues, the British consulate and the offices of British-based banking group HSBC, even if Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has cautioned that the link is not yet proven.

The car bombers were all Turks from the small southeast town of Bingol, known as a fundamentalist centre, and Erdogan said they had global connections. Local people and media reports said three had attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

Experts said this fits a pattern of attacks since September 11 in which al Qaeda's core operatives have increasingly played a background role: supplying know-how, and possibly finance, but leaving it to local actors to carry out individual missions.

"Al Qaeda has moved to a 'second generation' of structures and operational capability," said David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management in London.

"There clearly is some remaining (organisational) core, but that core is no longer involved in operations at the sharp end."

Analysts offer competing metaphors to describe the modus operandi of al Qaeda since late 2001, when U.S. forces drove it from its Afghan bases and captured or killed key leaders as President George W. Bush launched his war on terror.

Some see it as an international terror "university" or consultancy; others liken it to a franchising operation, endorsing approved operations around the world with the cachet of its feared global "brand".

"The old, damaged military organisation of al Qaeda has undergone a transformation to terror sponsor. That means Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri (his deputy) and others are more active today in the sense of franchising terrorism," said Berndt Georg Thamm, a German writer on security issues.

This meant local groups could tap into Qaeda's expertise to make contacts with like-minded networks and "order up" logistical support, financial help and advice on how to prepare and transport explosives.

"The re-organised al Qaeda consists of a very loose network of about 30 violent Islamist groups which are spread over the whole Muslim world," Thamm said.

"The network today is more virulent, essentially harder to grasp hold of and a lot harder to combat than a quasi-military terror group that is based in a single place."

Some experts believe the obsession of Western media and public opinion with al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden obscures the fact they have inspired a much wider global Islamist cause, dedicated to the waging of jihad (holy war).

Experts and intelligence chiefs see bin Laden still playing an important background role, but mainly as a symbol and preacher, periodically reinforcing the jihadist message with messages broadcast on Arabic television stations.

Individual militant groups have autonomous power to implement that agenda through specific attacks, with no need for specific central orders on what targets to hit.

"Al Qaeda has very successfully managed to create the conditions under which it can unleash these groups, either directly or indirectly," Claridge said.

"By committing the September 11 attacks, in particular, it significantly radicalised and demonstrated to a whole range of groups around the world that they can have impact if they shift their focus away from immediate domestic concerns towards international concerns."

Some experts argue that al Qaeda is already more of an ideology than an organisation.

"I'm not sure there exists at all a centralist entity with command and control," said French analyst Xavier Raufer.

"I think more and more (that) al Qaeda, if it is an entity at all, will become a clearing house for finances and intellectual resources," Claridge said.

Terrorism is an economic tool used by the region in order to control the trade routes --- "as ancient as the hills."

In the news recently, terror along a pipeline proposed --- here is the project:

Russia, Iran: Stepping on the Gas, by Hooman Peimani, Friday, September 27, 2002, Asia Times [online] ---

On September 19, [2002] Genadi Zodanov, leader of the Russian Communist Party and member of its parliamentary faction, described Iran as Russia's strategic ally and stated that Russia's parliament, the Duma, would oppose any effort to end Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran.

In tune with his vision for a strategic alliance, Zodanov called on Russia and Iran to create a natural gas version of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), with the cooperation of the Persian Gulf gas producers to control international gas prices. The proposal reflects a growing interest among Russian political and business leaders in further expanding ties with Iran for strategic reasons as American political and military pressure on Russia is increasing.

Given the American policy of isolating Iran, any growth in the already extensive Russian-Iranian relations will help worsen conflicts between Russia and the United States on many issues of importance to both, including the export of Caspian oil and gas.

Zodanov's statements were not surprising. Since the Soviet Union's fall in 1991, various political, economic and security needs and realities have compelled Russia to forge a friendship with its large neighbor Iran, which has its own compelling reasons for amicable ties with Russia. Russian-Iranian relations have since grown steadily to include a wide range of military and non-military areas, including economic, political and scientific ones. Thus, Zodanov's expression of the Duma's support of Russia's non-military nuclear cooperation with Iran is well within the practice of his country, as evident in its ongoing construction of Iran's first nuclear power reactor in the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr, apart from its recent expression of readiness to build more reactors. Constant American pressure has so far failed to stop the Bushehr project.

Likewise, energy cooperation has been one of the major areas of Russian-Iranian relations. A well-known example was Russia's joining France and Malaysia in 1997 to develop Iran's South Pars offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf, despite the Americans' threat of imposing economic sanctions on the three countries for violating the D'Amato Act. This American congressional act aims to prevent the development of the Iranian and Libyan energy industries by banning American firms from investments in and punishing non-American companies investing more than US$20 million in those countries.

As Russia and Iran respectively own the world's first and second largest natural gas reserves, it simply makes sense for them to form an organization of gas exporting countries with the Persian Gulf countries possessing significant gas reserves. Qatar, especially, with the world's third largest gas reserves, is a natural membership candidate.

Those three countries - Russia, Iran and Qatar - possess about half the proven global natural gas reserves. By coordinating their strategies within a gas-exporting organization, they could surely have a major impact on international gas markets. Among other things, they could easily impose rules and regulations on gas production, export and prices to end or, at least, minimize the current fierce rivalry among a growing number of gas exporters.

By cooperating with Iran on non-military nuclear projects and exploring an alliance on natural gas, Russia seems intent on finding and exploiting the pressure points in its relationship with the US. That relationship has experienced tensions because of a growing conflict of interest between the two sides. In particular, various events over the past few months have revealed a split between Russia and the United States after a relatively long period of stable relations in the post-Soviet era. Briefly, they included the growing American military and political presence in Russia's vicinity and the Russians' bid to expand their economic ties with the axis of evil members, Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Russia's conflict with the United States over its ties with those countries and over the American policy towards them, especially towards Iraq, have both demonstrated and further contributed to a schism in Russian-American relations. However, other rising issues, such as the export of Caspian oil, will certainly add fuel to their conflicts. After over eight years of delay, the construction of the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline began in mid September to create yet another source of conflict.

If its construction continues, the pipeline will connect Azerbaijan's oil fields, via Georgia, to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, from where oil tankers will deliver Azeri oil to the international markets. The pipeline is meant to secure a long-term oil export route not only for Azerbaijan, but eventually also for the other major Caspian oil producers (Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), while bypassing Iran and Russia, although those Caspian countries offer shorter, safer and cheaper export routes to the Caspian oil exporters. Thus, the pipeline will deny them a significant amount of annual revenues in transit fees and deprive them of an additional source of power and influence in the Caspian region. These strategic political and economic objectives have justified the American government to push for its construction, despite its deficiencies.

Being constructed by Western oil companies with clear anti-Iranian and anti-Russian objectives, there is no doubt that its completion will worsen the existing sentiment of mistrust and suspicion towards the United States, the main promoter of the pipeline, in both Russia and Iran. The American oil companies will be the pipeline's major beneficiaries, if its construction continues as planned and if it becomes fully operational in 2004.

Zodanov's hope for a Russian-Iranian-led natural gas equivalent of OPEC may well come true in the near future, for its tempting merits. Apart from its economic benefits, such an organization will certainly increase the regional and international status of the two dissatisfied regional powers as many parameters, including low cost and environmental considerations, are contributing to a growing global demand for natural gas.

Needless to say, a richer and more influential Russia will be more assertive in pursuing its national interests, which will ensure collisions with the United States over their conflicting interests. However, even if this scenario does not materialize, there is no doubt that the Duma-backed growing Russian-Iranian relations, especially in the non-military nuclear field, will guarantee further tensions and conflicts in Russian-American relations.

Such uneasy relations will likely make the Russians more prone to challenge the Americans over issues of strategic importance. That will make the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline a source of conflict, given its built-in American objective of denying Russia and Iran economic gains and political influence in the Caspian region to which they belong.

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Recent update on the BTC project - link.

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