U.N. Says Al Qaeda Is Active in 40 Countries

Al Qaeda continues to command an extensive network of well-financed terrorist operatives in 40 countries and has opened new training camps in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border to prepare a new generation of Islamic extremists for attacks on the West, a U.N. report released Tuesday says.

“Let’s face it, the sympathy for this organization is actually quite widespread in many countries,” Michael Chandler, the report’s chief author, said.

The report cites the recent bombings aimed at tourists in Bali, Indonesia, and Mombasa, Kenya, as evidence of Al Qaeda’s wide reach and the existence of a coalition of extremist groups in Southeast Asia and East Africa. Those attacks also demonstrated a shift in the group’s tactics, the report says.

“Soft targets, preferably with maximum casualties, would now appear to be the order of the day,” it says.

The 40-page report surveys the status of the international war on terrorism. Though it credits the United States and other governments with making important strides in breaking up Al Qaeda cells and freezing the group’s financial assets, it says those governments have been unable to prevent the organization and other extremist groups from raising enough funds -- through religious charities and informal money-changing operations known as hawalas -- to “support major operations.”

Chandler said his panel had turned up no evidence that Iraq had supplied Al Qaeda with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. But he raised concern that the network may be able to obtain such weapons elsewhere, noting recent seizures of black-market raw uranium in Tanzania.