Al Qaeda's U.S. Network
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
The Washington Times | August 13, 2004
Before we convince ourselves al Qaeda is down for the count, check the stats.
Islamist extremists in the world as estimated by moderate Muslim leaders: about 12 million. Fundamentalist sympathizers: 120 million. Those numbers represent 1 percent and 10 percent of the world's Muslim population of 1.2 billion. The CIA puts the extremists much higher — 40 million.
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The FBI's recent arrests of two imams in Albany following a yearlong sting disclosed their interest in manpads (shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Few of the younger U.S. counterintelligence agents realize manpads literally brought down the Soviet empire. With U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles, the Afghan mujahideen, many of them fathers of today's al Qaeda terrorists, grounded Soviet fighter-bombers, gunships and troop transports. Only eight months elapsed between withdrawal of the last Soviet troops from Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989, to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the liberation of Eastern Europe.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume al Qaeda seeks manpads —several hundred thousand are former Soviet models readily available on the international arms black market — as the weapon bin Laden believes could paralyze the U.S. or at the very least, bring the world economy to a standstill. Three airliners brought down the same day in different parts of the world would probably send markets into a tailspin.
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