Page 382 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Terrorism, Definition and History of———363

Another key factor in changing the face of terrorism Trade Center learned strategy and tactics and where
was Yasir Arafat’s tactical mistake—siding with Iraq the “mastermind” of the bombing, Ramzi Ahmed
before and during the Persian Gulf War. Long before Yousef, fought. It was Afghanistan where bin Laden
the war began, Arafat knew he could not run his PLO began to consolidate his control over an army of jihad
with the capricious support of Libya’s Muammar fighters bent on the destruction of the United States.
el-Qaddafi or the cash-and-carry conditional backing
of the former Soviet Union. He set out to create alter- THE NEW TERRORISM
native sources of funding that would give the PLO the
stability it needed to carry on a protracted terrorist The new terrorists who were trained in the terror
campaign. A significant portion of his funding came camps of Afghanistan and Sudan were not privy to the
from the conservative and vulnerable oil states, Kuwait Soviet training techniques. In fact, their militant
and Saudi Arabia. Arafat’s unconditional support of Islamic instructors had more field experience that the
Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War shut down this Soviet trainers of the past. They learned their bomb-
extraordinary flow of oil money. making and other terrorist tactics while fighting in
Instead, the money flowed into the coffers of Afghanistan.
Arafat’s competitor, the Islamic Resistance Movement The militant fundamentalism of this new breed of
or Hamas. Hamas was formed by Sheik Ahmed Yassin terrorists is reinforced by trainers who focus on the
in 1987 during the first intifada, or uprising, against verses in the Koran and the hadiths (the sayings of
Israeli occupation of the territories. Hamas members the Prophet Muhammad) that form the basis of
seek their identity in their Islamic roots. Hamas is Islamic law and idealize the glory of dying for Allah.
uncompromising and maximalist, insisting on the total Students graduate with a religious zeal that makes
liberation of the sacred land of Palestine as demanded them more implacable foes than their graying Soviet-
by Allah, who will repay martyrs for this cause with trained counterparts. The new students of terrorism
life everlasting. are easily inspired by a spiritual leader like bin Laden,
The militancy of Hamas is a common feature of the with his frequent calls for war against Americans
new terrorists. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and Jews.
in 1979 to prop up an embattled communist govern- The new terrorists are less hierarchically organized
ment, thousands of young warriors of Islam, including than their secular predecessors and, consequently,
the Saudi Osama bin Laden, from as far away as more difficult to spot, track, and intercept. In the past,
Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United States terrorist groups organized themselves very much like
answered the call to fight a jihad, holy war, at the side a large corporation, that is, pyramidally and linearly,
of their Afghan brothers. Stirred by the preaching of with a discernible descending or ascending power
incendiary clerics, 10,000 or more Muslims streamed structure. Knowing the structure of the terrorist group
into Peshawar, Pakistan, for weapons training and made fighting terrorism easier. Law enforcement and
indoctrination. The CIA, eager to humble the Soviets intelligence agencies could contain terrorist organiza-
in what turned out to be the last superpower tussle, tion by infiltrating them at either the top or the bottom.
invested billions of dollars in weaponry and training It is much more difficult for today’s law enforcement
to turn these young warriors of Islam into a cadre of agencies to infiltrate militant Islamic groups, such as
freedom fighters capable of driving out the Soviets. bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, that are fluid and not structured
Those who survived the decade-long war helped turn the same way as secular groups of earlier periods.
Afghanistan into a veritable boot camp for terrorists. However, the lack of obvious hierarchy does not
Veterans of these Afghan classrooms have taken mean that the work of this new breed is less devas-
their jihad abroad not only to Sudanese terror camps tating than earlier generations of terrorists—indeed,
but also to Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, the willingness of members of terrorist groups such
Burma, Egypt, India, Morocco, Pakistan, Tajikistan, as Al Qaeda to participate in suicide attacks opens
Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and the United States. It up heretofore unknown possibilities for devastation.
was Afghanistan where Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, On September 11, 2001, 19 hijackers took over four
convicted of seditious conspiracy and a variety of U.S. domestic flights, successfully crashing two of
other charges, went to visit. It was Afghanistan where the hijacked planes into the World Trade Center tow-
the men convicted for the 1993 bombing of the World ers in New York City and one into the Pentagon near