Ibrahim Nafie * August is indeed the hottest month of the year -- in terms of military and paramilitary activity. I arrived in the US right after the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and experienced first hand the reverberations of these explosions in US public opinion. As well as the mobilisation of opinion toward a military response to terrorism, I noted an increasing trend to expand the front in the fight against terrorism and the forces that support it. At the same time, I remarked that military force is insufficient in the absence of a comprehensive strategy, and that any armed action, or threat thereof, must be complemented by appropriate economic and political measures. The most important element in a comprehensive strategy, however, is that the response to terrorism should not take the form of unilateral US action. It must emanate from a collective position based on international law and the UN Charter. Support and cooperation resulting from consensus are essential if terrorism is to be fought successfully. In the US, I noted numerous indications of the effort to expand the front against terrorism and to diversify the means of fighting it. In his weekly address to the nation, President Clinton announced that the US would use all means available to destroy the terrorist network of Osama Bin Laden. He warned that the military strikes against Bin Laden were only the beginning. Numerous other officials issued similar statements. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that this was "the war of the future". Other US sources stated that US military, intelligence and State Department officials have begun to prepare themselves for a prolonged battle and to calculate the risks such a battle will entail. The US President was also quick to link the bombings of the US embassies to other terrorist acts, such as the murder of 62 tourists in Luxor last year, the attempted assassination of Pope Paul II and the attempted assassination of President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. The implication is that terrorism is not only a threat to the US, and that those who implemented the strikes against American targets are part of an organised network that can strike in other countries. US experts explained that it was not Bin Laden who actually made the bombs used in the strikes against the US embassies in east Africa, and that he did not go there himself to place the bombs. Rather, they say, he provided the financing which all terrorist groups require to carry out their activities. At the same time, there appears to be a growing sense that military action alone is, at best, only a short-term solution. US experts say that these terrorist groups have become highly organised and have at their disposal enormous funds, enabling their members to move freely around the world. Bin Laden, they say, owns many companies and bank accounts, most under false names, which enable him to transfer funds through legitimate channels. This realisation has triggered a concerted effort among intelligence agencies to discover and monitor the activities of banks and institutions associated with Bin Laden. It also explains Clinton's announcement that he had signed an executive order to the treasury banning all US citizens and corporations from engaging in financial transactions with the organisations associated with Bin Laden. While this may constitute the framework of the new US approach to terrorism, several questions, in my opinion, still require explanation. For example, if President Clinton could issue an executive order in the wake of the US strikes on the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan placing Bin Laden and those associated with him on the list of terrorists and thus, in accordance with US law, permitting the freezing of their assets in US banks and companies, why did he not issue this order before? Several years ago, the CIA began to conduct a thorough trace of Bin Laden's money-laundering schemes. Using various surveillance techniques, CIA operatives have been able to monitor the movement of his assets and the funds of the terrorist groups working with him, and have been able to compile a list of the companies that serve as fronts for terrorist activities. Moreover, they had an easy starting point -- a complete file on Bin Laden compiled in 1979, when he began working for the CIA to recruit and train the "Arab Afghans" who were resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. According to a recent Congressional report, Bin Laden was highly valued by the US until the end of the war in Afghanistan in 1989. It therefore seems reasonable to presume that the US could have taken financial action against him long ago. The focus on Bin Laden brings me to my final point: the prerequisites for a comprehensive, long-term strategy to fight terrorism. In the first place, there should not be such exclusive focus on Bin Laden, both because such focus is limited and because he is ultimately an American product. The terrorism that wreaks such devastating blows on US interests is not the doing of a single individual, however instrumental he may be in triggering events. If Bin Laden were not here, someone else would be. Moreover, Bin Laden is only one thread in a vast web of terrorist organisations held together by their thirst for destruction. Second, international cooperation is fundamental in the fight against international terrorism. Tracing and stopping the transfer of terrorist funds between companies and banks around the world requires the participation of all governments. In addition, the web of terrorist groups is, in effect, a multinational organisation. Its members are of diverse nationalities and move easily from one country to another in search of refuge. They generally find it in countries embroiled in civil strife where the security agencies are unable to assert full control. Afghanistan, Bosnia and Albania have served this purpose, in addition to proving convenient training grounds. Finally, military reprisals will only provoke violent reactions; innocent civilians will be the first to suffer. All possible means should be used to avoid the escalation of violence. After all, the purpose of the fight against terrorism is to protect innocent civilians from the evil it inflicts at random. This, in turn, requires even closer international cooperation so that the noose around terrorism can be tightened effectively. It was in this spirit that Egypt launched an official appeal for a UN-sponsored summit conference aimed at devising a framework for a collective and systematic fight against terrorism. This appeal reflects Egypt's understanding of the true nature of international terrorism. It is a peril that threatens all nations, regions and religions; terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon that knows only the creed of violence. * The writer is Chairman of the Board of Al-Ahram Organization and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram.
