Jamaal-ud-deen Musallam explores the respective aspirations and concerns about the use of WMD in light of Al-Suri's wild threats Abu-Mus'ab Al-Suri, wanted by American authorities at a reward five million dollars, recently declaimed the ethics and logic of attacking the United States with weapons of mass destruction. While denying any participation, Al-Suri has made it clear that he approved of the Manhattan attacks. He has also expressed the desire to bring down "the majority of those who, knowing of the Bush administration's crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Abu Ghraib, and his lies regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq, still voted him in for a second term." Washington's Middle East policy seems to spew extremists like Al-Suri. Indeed, the Iraqi- based Islamist militant, whose views are largely known through unconfirmed Internet-posted declarations, began his terrorist career in the West and with indirect Western backing. Al-Suri, or Mustafa bin Hussein, was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1958, where he studied mechanical engineering. He underwent military training in Jordan, Iraq and Egypt before moving to France, Spain and Afghanistan, where he was coached in explosives engineering. Between 1987-91 he participated in the jihad against the Russians and joined Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. He stayed in London between 1994-7 to assist Algerian jihadis in matters of mass media and established the Bureau for the Study of Islamic Conflicts. In 1997, he returned to Afghanistan to co-operate with the Taliban and helped establish the Al-Ghurabaa camp. After the Americans completely destroyed the camp in an air raid in October 2001, Al-Suri dedicated himself to the "Call for Global Islamic Resistance". In a posting on the Internet, Al-Suri went so far as to claim that, if consulted, he would have recommended that the 9/ 11 attacks be carried out on a much larger scale. He further argues that striking America with weapons of mass destruction is a complex matter and difficult to achieve; but an act, he insists, that will eventually become both possible and a necessity. He goes on to explain that "the US has been aggressive towards humanity in general and Muslims in particular," citing its use of the atomic bomb in WWII, and its use of chemical weapons in Korea and Vietnam. More recently, America has attacked Afghanistan and Iraq "with thousands of tons of uranium bombs, leaving thousands of civilians plagued with cancer, and vast areas of land and underground water contaminated with nuclear radiation". Al-Suri concludes by raising a motto of his own: "Dirty bombs for a dirty nation!" For these reasons, Al-Suri entreats North Korea to continue its nuclear programme, and for Iran to dismiss International Atomic Agency head Mohamed El-Baradai who, he says, "went to Iran on an inspection mission as if he were a 'dignified lion', and to Israel on a similar mission as if he were a 'humiliated cat'!" Needless to say, the West has good reason to be apprehensive of such attacks. On 10 February, 2005, in a seminar in Whitehall, London, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that terrorism and WMD might be combined in a dirty bomb. In the same month, Ronald Nobel, head of INTERPOL, declared that the use of biological weapons by Al-Qaeda represents a real threat. The British newspaper The Observer published the following: "Al-Qaeda are known to have acquired plans for the manufacture of nuclear arms. Intelligence services are aware that meetings between representatives of Al-Qaeda and nuclear scientists took place before 11 September." On 5 September 2005, the secretary-general of the Russian Security Council said that the use of WMD in terrorist attacks is still likely. In America, the Department of Homeland Security, trying to streamline anti-terrorism spending nationwide, has identified a dozen strike scenarios, including the detonation of a nuclear device in a major city, the release of the nerve agent Sarin in office buildings, and a truck bombing of a sports arena. Political science professor Ahmed Thabet, of Cairo University, recalling the terrorist use of Sarin in the Tokyo underground metro bombing, points out that the incident confirms that "some groups actually hold one kind or another of chemical or biological weapon." He adds, however, that this "also means that terror attacks are not confined to Islamist groups". Thabet explains that the likelihood that Islamist groups are in possession of these weapons depends on a number of factors. While "they may very well try to obtain these weapons, I think that it is now impossible. There is now a control surveillance on the proliferation of these weapons. Governments throughout the world are closely cooperating by intelligence and military measures to contain terrorist attacks." Thabet argues that the attacks in London and Sinai, carried out by small groups and without sophisticated organisation, suggest that they are deprived of access to the really devastating forms of WMD. "Americans are simply over- exaggerating to make their enemy 'very big'," he concludes. Amr El-Choubaki of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, adds that the US is exaggerating in order "to convince the world that there is only one danger -- Islamic terrorism". For him, terrorist attacks with WMD are near impossible. "There is no accurate information that jihadi groups hold WMD," El-Choubaki asserts. However, Ibrahim El-Naggar, a researcher cooperating with the centre, believes the Americans "are holding bin Laden in the position of a supernatural man who is capable of unbelievable deeds". This is because "they are convinced that America, though said to be the global sole superpower, has failed in its war against terrorism. Four years after the 11 September attacks, Al-Qaeda is still in existence -- stronger even -- and with supporters all over the world." If indeed, as El-Naggar and others claim, Al-Qaeda is gaining more and more recruits who are bent on America's downfall, then the chances of a catastrophically-scaled attack in mainland America, though seemingly difficult, may eventually become a reality.
