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On April 15, the voice of Osama bin Laden spoke again. "This is a message to our neighbors north of the Mediterranean, containing a reconciliation initiative as a response to their positive reactions," bin Laden said on the Arab satellite cha
From bin Laden's perspective, he was offering to bring Europe into an unsettled middle ground called the dar al-Sulh. This is the land of the treaty, where Muslims live as a peaceful minority. European leaders rejected bin Laden's proposal almost immediately, seeing it as a ploy to aggravate the tensions in the Western alliance. "It's the weirdest thing in the world," a senior FBI official told me. "It shows he's on the ropes, desperate."
Bin Laden's truce offer immediately became a topic of discussion on the Islamist Web sites. "This initiative should be considered a golden opportunity to the people of Europe," read a posting by Global Islamic Media on qal3ah.net. "Do not find it strange if after a while, a year or so, you will hear about secret negotiations by one country and representatives of Al Qaeda…The organization has come to represent the Islamic ummah and speaks in its name. It appears that we are returning to the days of the caliphate."
On another site, islah.tv, a writer calling himself "Ya Rab Sha-hada" (Oh God, Martyrdom) picked up on the theme: "The Sheikh speaks these words as the Caliph of the Muslims and not as a wanted man…This is the sign to begin the big strike onAmerica." An-otherwritersaid, "Herewehavethe landsof Al Andalus wherethe trains were struck. The Sheikh is isolating America now…and it will be seen who will choose peace from those who chose suicide." A writer calling himself "@adlomari@" added, "The Sheikh has… proved to the world that Europe does not want peace with Muslims, and that it wants to be a partner in the Crusader crimes against Muslims. The coming days will show that events in Europe are coming if it does not respond to the Sheikh's initiative. Tomorrow is near."
The fact that bin Laden was addressing nations as an equal showed a new confidence in Al Qaeda's ability to manipulate the political future. Exploiting this power will depend, in part, on convincing the West that Al Qaeda and bin Laden remain in control of the worldwide Islamist jihad. As long as Al Qaeda is seen as being an irrational, unyielding death cult, the only response is to destroy it. But if Al Qaeda-amorphous as that entity has become-has evolved into something like a virtual Islamist state that is trying to find a permanent place for itself in the actual world, then the prospect of future negotiations is not out of the question, however unlikely or repellent that may sound to Americans. After all, the Spanish government has brokered truces with ETA, which has killed four times as many people in Spain as Al Qaeda has, and the accelerated withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq following the train bombings has already set a precedent for accommodation, which was quickly followed by the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Last year, Germany paid a six-million-dollar ransom to Algerian terrorists, and the Philippines recently pulled its fifty troops out of Iraq in order to save a hostage from being beheaded.
On July 21, immediately after the Philippine hostage was freed, new warnings appeared on the Internet, from a body called the Tawhid Islamic Group, promising terror attacks against Poland and Bulgaria unless they withdrew their troops from Iraq. Although leaders of both countries immediately rejected the demands, opinion polls showed that popular sentiment was turning against the countries' presence in Iraq. Another threat, allegedly from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, Tawhid and Jihad, warned Japan that "queues of cars laden with explosives" were waiting, unless Japanese humanitarian troops left Iraq. Also in July, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades posted a communique on the Internet ordering Italians to overthrow their Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. "We are in Italy, and not one of you is safe so long as you refuse our Sheikh's offer," the message said. "Get rid of the incompetent
Berlusconi or we will truly burn Italy." The Internet warriors have been emboldened, although it is impossible to know how seriously to take their threats.
Appeasement is a foolish strategy for dealing with Al Qaeda. Last year, many Saudis were stu
Intelligence officials are now trying to determine who is the next target, and are sifting through "chatter" in search of a genuine threat. "We see people getting on the Internet and then they get on their phones and talk about it," a senior FBI official told me. "We are now responding to the threat to the U.S. elections." The idea of attacking before Election Day, the official said, "was born out of Madrid." Earlier this year, an international task force dubbed Operation Crevice arrested members of a bomb-making ring in London. During the investigation, officials overheard statements that there were jihadis in Mexico awaiting entry into the United States. That coincided with vague warnings from European imams about attacks before the elections. As a result of this intelligence, surveillance of border traffic from Mexico has been increased.
Even though Al Qaeda has been weakened by the capture of key operatives, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, it is hardly defunct. "There is a replacement for Mohammed named Abu Faraj," the FBI official said. "If there is an attack on the United States, his deputy, Hamza Rabia, will be responsible. He's head of external operations for Al Qaeda-an arrogant, nasty guy." The official continued, "The most dangerous thing now is that no one is in control. These guys don't have to go back to bin Laden or Zawahiri for approval."
One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11 bombings is that the pla