‘Amateurs’ May Join in Terrorism

A U.S. war with Iraq could sharply escalate a growing and hard-to-disrupt variant of international terrorism: sudden assaults by sympathizers acting alone or in small groups and motivated by religious fervor, U.S. and allied counter-terrorism officials say.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft warned the nation Friday of renewed threats by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, publicly insisting that a recent spike in activity by terror cells around the globe is unrelated to the increasing likelihood of a military showdown with Iraq.

Privately, however, U.S. counter-terrorism authorities and their counterparts overseas said that there is a connection, and that Al Qaeda cells are thought to be planning attacks against Americans and other Westerners as a show of solidarity with Muslims in Iraq.

Citing recent intelligence, these authorities also fear that a potential second front in the war on terrorism is taking shape. A groundswell of anger toward the United States, they said, could prompt attacks by Muslims with no formal ties to terrorist organizations -- in response to what they view as an assault on Islam.

“These are amateurs who are mobilized by the rhetoric, who take it upon themselves to go on missions and cause terrorism upon unprotected targets that are a symbol of their hatred,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a counter-terrorism consultant to several European governments.

“Only if you get lucky can you stop these people -- if they walk into an area that is under surveillance. But others will act spontaneously, particularly if and when war breaks out.”

A top diplomatic official from one of the United States’ closest allies described recent intelligence in more specific terms.

“Israel, India, Turkey, Germany, France, the U.K., Malaysia, the Philippines -- we are all taking action,” the allied official said. “We feel such attacks are inevitable, and we are deploying accordingly. They will target whoever is vulnerable, but particularly Americans.”

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Signs of Unrest Growing

In recent months, officials in the United States and abroad have picked up increasing signs of agitation within radicalized pockets of Muslim communities. They stressed, however, that the vast majority of Muslims -- although they may oppose the U.S. military buildup against Iraq -- are peaceable and law-abiding.

But authorities said radical Muslim leaders in dozens of mosques, cultural centers and study groups -- mostly overseas -- are lashing out at the United States, predicting that a war will kill innocent women and children. Many have issued what amounts to a “call to arms,” authorities said, portraying intervention in Iraq as the first step in a broader campaign against their religion.

And some, the intelligence indicates, have painted a war with Iraq as a clash of biblical proportions, the allied official said.

“The feeling will be that the war of the civilizations has gotten underway: the Christian-Judaism followers against Islam,” the official said. “There will be immediate reprisals; they will want to show that they are doing something, wherever they can.”

But reprisals can go the other way, noted Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He said these concerns unfairly single out Muslims for increased police surveillance and even a backlash from others.

“I wish [the authorities would] be as equally concerned about creating anti-Muslim hysteria,” he said. “As they ratchet up the hysteria on these kinds of issues, bad things can happen in terms of hate crimes and discrimination. It leads the public to accept profiling.”

Others within the Muslim community said they feared that the Bush administration’s aggressive stance is creating the threat of increased terrorism.

“Terrorism thrives where there is instability and motivated recruits. And war with Iraq is likely to create more instability and more motivated recruits,” said Shibley Telhami, a professor of government at the University of Maryland.

Already, there have been public indications of trouble ahead.

Al Qaeda leaders have told Arab news organizations that it is the duty of all Muslims to attack Westerners in response to war in Iraq. In Pakistan and other Islamic countries, newspapers are full of editorials and commentary warning of attacks against Westerners should war break out. European nations predict trouble as well.

In Washington last week, German Interior Minister Otto Schily discussed the subject in meetings with Ashcroft, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other officials.

“If a war takes place, emotions will intensify” among millions of Muslims in Europe, Schily told reporters. “It’s quite clear you can’t exclude repercussions. And a lot depends on [whether] a possible war is a long-lasting one or ... short-term. It depends on how many victims will be civilians. But this is obviously a matter of great concern to us.”

On Friday, citing in part a rise in anti-American sentiment, the State Department advised all but essential U.S. diplomats, along with family members, to leave Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. A similar advisory was issued last month to diplomats in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Friday’s advisory came one day after the department issued an updated “worldwide caution,” warning Americans overseas about their increased vulnerability to terrorism, including chemical or biological attacks.

And that, in turn, came just hours after a British engineer was shot at in Saudi Arabia. Authorities said the man, who escaped with minor injuries, was followed by a vehicle and was fired at five times while in his car near his home.

There have been other incidents: In October, an administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development was shot to death outside his home in Jordan; in December, three American missionaries were killed and a fourth was severely wounded at their hospital in Yemen; and last month, two American businessman were shot -- one fatally -- while driving in Kuwait. In each instance, the assailants were described as Al Qaeda sympathizers with no formal ties to terrorist groups.

And raids throughout Europe and Asia have netted hundreds of people, unaffiliated with organized terrorism, who authorities say were planning or discussing terrorist attacks.

In response, U.S. and allied officials have quietly begun making preparations to respond to attacks, fortifying embassies and consulates and beefing up patrols in areas where Westerners might congregate.

Counter-terrorism authorities also have increased their monitoring of religious extremists whose mosques are considered the prime breeding ground for Islamic radicalism.

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Building a Following

Last week, British authorities forced Sheik Abu Hamza al Masri from his leadership post at the Finsbury Park mosque, a center of Islamic radicalism in London, after he made a series of inflammatory speeches, including praise for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Egyptian-born cleric’s fiery oratories attracted a following among religious extremists who subsequently were accused of terrorist activities. Among them were convicted “shoe-bomber” Richard C. Reid, alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and a group arrested in 2001 for allegedly plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

Last month, while probing the discovery of the deadly poison ricin in a London apartment, anti-terrorist police raided the mosque, arrested seven men and seized documents, computers and other items.

In Indonesia, authorities closely monitored Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization known as Jemaah Islamiah, before arresting him last October. Authorities accuse him of inciting his followers to commit acts of terrorism, including last year’s bombing of a disco in Bali that killed nearly 200 people.

Such militants are only a tiny percentage of Muslim religious leaders, but U.S. and allied officials believe many of them have peppered their speeches with references to the looming war with Iraq to attract more followers and spur them to action.

“They are opportunists, using the suffering of Muslims to mobilize their followers,” said Ranstorp, director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

For years, Al Qaeda recruiters have circulated at such mosques, encouraging the more fervent worshipers to join study groups, where a process of radicalization would begin. They would be shown videotapes and be asked to join the jihad, or holy war, against the West. Some would then go to Afghanistan and Pakistan for further study; a more select group would be sent to Al Qaeda training camps.

In all, more than 80,000 Muslims -- mostly young men -- went to the camps, authorities now believe. Fewer than 5% of them pledged an oath of allegiance to Al Qaeda and became active in terror cells at home.

As for the other 76,000 or so, authorities fear they are spread throughout at least 95 countries and are at prime risk of spontaneously resorting to violence and of spreading their views and terrorism know-how to others.

One U.S. counter-terrorism official said his concerns go far beyond members of organized terrorist cells. “We’ve already lost the militants” affiliated with Al Qaeda and other groups. “It’s the other people we’re worried about now -- the average man on the street in the Arab world.”