Week One of 2010 - Part Two

The second (although it happened first) was the sudden (albeit appropriate) fury from Washington at the Christmas Bomber incident. It somehow felt sluggish, hesitant and slow coming on the first few days then suddenly everybody was talking at the same time. Was that because they were caught off- guard, but then isn’t that the nature of terrorist attacks and terrorism ‘the element of surprise’. Or does Washington now have a relaxed and measured reaction to this type of attacks as part of the new ‘man made war’ business? Either way it did not justify the lack of inelegance sharing or the laxness that aloud Abel Mutallab to get a visa, pay cash for a one way ticket and board a transatlantic flight from Belgium.

With the revelation that the bomber was trained in Yemen, and especially now that Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the failed attack all the western securities chatter and attention are now focused on Yemen as the new stage for the war on terror.

What some people seem to forget is that Al Qaeda is a franchise, in the same way McDonald, the Body Shop, and similar business are. That gives it multiple addresses all over the world, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, even Egypt and Sudan and many other countries we don’t yet know about. Even though not all these countries have training camps, the recruitment process is on going. Dare I say Al Qaeda is present in the UK? Yes it is, and it is daily recruiting new members. Otherwise, how else can we explain home grown terrorists like the 7/7 bombers and others terror merchants in the UK?

The dilemma here is how can we effectively fight an enemy like that? All we seem to achieve is push them around, we force them out of one country and they simply set up camps next door. Many countries have weak boarder control, officials who will look the other way and politicians who want to stay in power. Besides an operation like Al Qaeda’s need a great deal of money to stay operational and mobile, where is that money coming from? Who has an invested interest and will benefit from the existence of Al Qaeda? And finally what is Al Qaeda’s goal? The spread of Islam, justice for Palestine, or simply power, the right answer holds the secret to possible peace and maybe even the end to Islamic terror.