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Country Reports
on Terrorism 2006
Released by the Office of the Coordinator for
Counterterrorism
April 30, 2007
Five Years On, Progress is Mixed
Significant Achievements
Five years after 9/11, the international community's conflict with
transnational terrorists continues. Cooperative international efforts have
produced genuine security improvements - particularly in securing borders and
transportation, enhancing document security, disrupting terrorist financing, and
restricting the movement of terrorists. The international community has also
achieved significant success in dismantling terrorist organizations and
disrupting their leadership. This has contributed to reduced terrorist
operational capabilities and the detention or death of numerous key terrorist
leaders.
Working with allies and partners across the world, through coordination and
information sharing, we have created a less permissive operating environment for
terrorists, keeping leaders on the move or in hiding, and degrading their
ability to plan and mount attacks. Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and many other partners played major
roles in this success, recognizing that international terrorism represents a
threat to the whole international community.
Through the Regional Strategic Initiative, the State Department is working
with ambassadors and interagency representatives in key terrorist theaters of
operation to assess the threat and devise collaborative strategies, action
plans, and policy recommendations. We have made progress in organizing regional
responses to terrorists who operate in ungoverned spaces or across national
borders. This initiative has produced better intra-governmental coordination
among United States government agencies, greater cooperation with and between
regional partners, and improved strategic planning and prioritization, allowing
us to use all tools of statecraft to establish long-term measures to marginalize
terrorists. (See Chapter 5 -- Terrorist Safe Havens (7120 Report) for
further information on the Regional Strategic Initiative.)
Continuing Challenges
Despite this undeniable progress, major challenges remain. Several states
continue to sponsor terrorism. Iran remains the most significant state sponsor
of terrorism and continues to threaten its neighbors and destabilize Iraq by
providing weapons, training, advice, and funding to select Iraqi Shia militants.
Syria, both directly and in coordination with Hizballah, has attempted to
undermine the elected Government of Lebanon and roll back progress toward
democratization in the Middle East. Syria also supports some Iraqi Baathists and
militants and has continued to allow foreign fighters and terrorists to transit
through its borders into Iraq.
International intervention in Iraq has brought measurable benefits. It has
removed an abusive totalitarian regime with a history of sponsoring and
supporting regional terrorism and has allowed a new democratic political process
to emerge. It also, however, has been used by terrorists as a rallying cry for
radicalization and extremist activity that has contributed to instability in
neighboring countries.
Afghanistan remains threatened by Taliban insurgents and religious
extremists, some of whom are linked to al-Qaida (AQ) and to sponsors outside the
country. In Afghanistan public support for the government remains high, national
institutions are getting stronger and the majority of Afghans believe they are
better off than under the Taliban. But to defeat the resurgent threat, the
international community must deliver promised assistance and work with Afghans
to build counterinsurgency capabilities, ensure legitimate and effective
governance, and counter the surge in narcotics cultivation.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains a source of terrorist motivation.
The holding of free elections in the Palestinian Territories was a welcome sign
of democratization, but HAMAS' subsequent refusal to disavow terrorism or accept
Israel's internationally-accepted right to exist undermined the election's
impact. Terrorist activity emanating from the Palestinian Territories remains a
key destabilizing factor and a cause for concern.
The summer war in Lebanon between Israel and Hizballah was a prime example of
how Hizballah's continued efforts to manipulate persisting grievances along the
Israeli/Lebanese border can quickly escalate into open warfare. The conflict did
force the international community again to demand Hizballah's complete
disarmament, in UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1701, and generated a
renewed international commitment to support a peaceful, stable, multi-sectarian
democracy in Lebanon. Even so, Hizballah, a designated foreign terrorist
organization, in combination with state sponsors of terrorism Iran and Syria,
continues to undermine the elected Government of Lebanon and remains a serious
security threat in the Middle East.
AQ and its affiliates have adapted to our success in disrupting their
operational capability by focusing more attention and resources on their
propaganda and misinformation efforts. They exploit and interpret the actions of
numerous local, pseudo-independent actors, using them to mobilize supporters and
sympathizers, intimidate opponents and influence international opinion.
Terrorists consider information operations to be a principal part of their
effort. The international community has yet to muster a coordinated and
effectively resourced counter to extremist propaganda.
Overall, AQ and its loose confederation of affiliated movements remain the
most immediate national security threat to the United States and a significant
security challenge to the international community.
Key Al-Qaida Trends
Single terrorist events, like the Askariya mosque bombing in
Samarra, Iraq on
February 22, 2006, which provoked widespread sectarian violence and changed the
character of the war in Iraq, can become triggers for broader conflict or
templates for copycat attacks. Because terrorism is fundamentally political, the
political significance of major events is vital in determining meaningful
responses. Thus, the trends presented in this section are interpretive - they
provide qualitative insight to complement the statistical detail covered in
later chapters.
Transition from "Expeditionary" to "Guerrilla"
Terrorism
Early AQ terrorist attacks were largely expeditionary. The organization
selected and trained terrorists in one country, then clandestinely inserted a
team into the target country to attack a pre-planned objective. The 1998 U.S.
embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole,
and the 9/11 attacks were examples of this. Improved international border
security, transportation security and document control have made this type of
attack more difficult. Clandestine insertion across borders is harder,
reconnaissance is more risky, and international movement of funds and equipment
is more likely to be detected.
Thus we have seen a trend toward guerrilla terrorism, where the organization
seeks to grow the team close to its target, using target country nationals.
Through intermediaries, web-based propaganda, and subversion of immigrant
expatriate populations, terrorists inspire local cells to carry out attacks
which they then exploit for propaganda purposes. This circumvents the need to
insert a team across borders or clandestinely transfer funds and materiel. The
2004 Madrid bombing, the London attacks of July 2005, and the thwarted August
2006 attempt to attack passenger jets operating from British airports include
elements of this approach.
Both expeditionary and guerrilla approaches co-exist, alongside true
"home-grown" terrorism involving local cells acting spontaneously
rather than being than consciously inspired by trans-national terrorists. Rather
than adopting a single modus operandi, AQ and its affiliated movements
continue to be highly adaptive, quickly evolving new methods in response to
countermeasures.
Terrorist Propaganda Warfare
As identified in the 2005 Country Reports, the international
community's success in disrupting terrorist leadership and operational capacity
led AQ to focus greater efforts on misinformation and anti-Western propaganda.
This trend accelerated this year, with AQ cynically exploiting the grievances of
local groups and attempting to portray itself as the vanguard of a global
movement. AQ still retains some operational capability and the intent to mount
large-scale spectacular attacks, including on the United States and other
high-profile Western targets. Overall, however, AQ's current approach focuses on
propaganda warfare - using a combination of terrorist attacks, insurgency, media
broadcasts, Internet-based propaganda, and subversion to undermine confidence
and unity in Western populations and generate the false perception of a powerful
worldwide movement.
The Terrorist "Conveyor Belt"
Radicalization of immigrant populations, youth and alienated minorities in
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa continued. It became increasingly clear,
however, that such radicalization does not occur by accident, or because such
populations are innately prone to extremism. Rather, there was increasing
evidence of terrorists and extremists manipulating the grievances of alienated
youth or immigrant populations and then cynically exploiting those grievances to
subvert legitimate authority and create unrest.
Terrorists seek to manipulate grievances represent a "conveyor
belt" through which terrorists seek to convert alienated or aggrieved
populations, convert them to extremist viewpoints, and turn them, by stages,
into sympathizers, supporters, and ultimately, members of terrorist networks. In
some regions, this includes efforts by AQ and other terrorists to exploit
insurgency and communal conflict as radicalization and recruitment tools,
especially using the Internet to convey their message. Countering such efforts
demands that we treat immigrant and youth populations not as a source of threat
to be defended against, but as a target of enemy subversion to be protected and
supported. It also requires community leaders to take responsibility for the
actions of members within their communities and act to counteract extremist
subversion.
A New Kind of Enemy
Al-Qaida as a Global Insurgency
The surface events mentioned above highlight a deeper trend: the
transformation of international terrorism from the traditional forms that
Congress intended to address when it established the annual Country Reports
series into a broader, multifarious approach to transnational non-state warfare
that now resembles a form of global insurgency. We have entered a new era of
conflict that may demand new paradigms and different responses from those of
previous eras.
AQ and its core leadership group represent a global action network that seeks
to aggregate and exploit the effects of widely dispersed, semi-independent
actors. It openly describes itself as a transnational guerrilla movement and
applies classic insurgent strategies at the global level. AQ applies terrorism,
but also subversion, propaganda, and open warfare, and it seeks weapons of mass
destruction in order to inflict the maximum possible damage on its opponents. It
links and exploits a wider, more nebulous community of regional, national, and
local actors who share some of its objectives, but also pursue their own local
agendas. Finally, it works through regional and cross-border safe havens that
facilitate its actions while hampering government responses.
Disaggregating the Threat
To the extent that AQ succeeds in aggregating this broader constellation of
extremist actors, it can begin to pursue more frequent and geographically
extensive terror attacks. Therefore, we must act to disaggregate the threat,
through international cooperation, counterpropaganda, counter subversion,
counterinsurgency, and traditional counterterrorism.
Disaggregation breaks the links in the chain that exploit ordinary people's
grievances and manipulates them into becoming terrorists. It seeks to provide
those who are already radicalized with a way out and to create pathways for
alienated groups to redress their legitimate grievances without joining the
terrorist network. Disaggregation denies AQ its primary objective of achieving
leadership over extremist movements worldwide and unifying them into a single
movement. It does not remove the threat but helps reduce it to less dangerous
local components, which can be dealt with by individual governments and
communities working together.
Trusted Networks
Such cooperation requires the creation of trusted networks to displace and
marginalize extremist networks. While killing and capturing key terrorist actors
is fundamental in combating terrorism, it can have detrimental effects. These
actions do not eliminate the threat and, if mishandled, can be actively
counterproductive. Instead, we must seek to build trusted networks of
governments, private citizens and organizations, multilateral institutions, and
business organizations that work collaboratively to defeat the threat from
violent extremism.
Such networks, over time, help wean at-risk populations away from subversive
manipulation by terrorists and create mechanisms to address people's needs and
grievances, thus marginalizing terrorists. Youth organizations, educational
networks, business partnerships, women's empowerment, and local development
initiatives can all play a role, with government as a supportive partner.
Leaders, Safe Havens, Underlying Conditions
To make such active measures effective, the three strategic components of the
terrorist threat that must be neutralized are leaders, safe havens, and
underlying conditions. Leaders provide a motivating, mobilizing, and organizing
function and act as symbolic figureheads. Safe havens, which are often in
ungoverned or under-governed spaces, provide a secure environment for training,
planning, financial and operational support; and a base for mounting attacks.
They may be physical or virtual in nature. In addition, underlying conditions
provide the fuel, in the form of grievances and conflicts that power the
processes of radicalization.
Treating this new era of conflict as a form of global insurgency implies that
counterinsurgency methods are fundamental in combating the new form of
transnational terrorism. These methods include firstly, a focus on protecting
and securing the population; and secondly, politically and physically
marginalizing the insurgents, winning the support and cooperation of at-risk
populations by targeted political and development measures, and conducting
precise intelligence-led special operations to eliminate critical enemy elements
with minimal collateral damage.
Integrating All Elements of National Power
All elements of national power including diplomatic, military, economic, and
intelligence, must be integrated and applied in a coordinated
whole-of-government fashion. The intellectual and psychological dimensions of
the threat are at least as important as its physical dimension, so
countermeasures must be adequately coordinated and resourced. Thus, the military
component of national power plays only a supporting role in this effort; the
primary focus is on non-military influence.
Because the enemy is a non-state actor who thrives among disaffected
populations, private sector efforts are at least as important as government
activity. Citizen diplomacy, cultural activity, person-to-person contact,
economic cooperation and development, and the application of media and academic
resources are key components of our response to the threat. Motivating,
mobilizing, and supporting such privately led activities are key leadership
tasks in the new environment.
Commitment - the Key to Success
Experience since 9/11 has shown that the key success factor in confronting
violent extremism is the commitment by governments to work with each other, with
the international community, with private sector organizations, and with their
citizens and immigrant populations.
Where governments cooperate, build trusted networks, seek active informed
support from their people, provide responsive, effective and legitimate
governance, and engage closely with the international community, the threat from
terrorism has been significantly reduced.
Where governments have lacked commitment in working with their neighbors and
engaging the support of their people, terrorism and the instability and conflict
that terrorists exploit remain key sources of threat.
Summary
This chapter sets the scene for the detailed analysis that follows. In
reviewing events since 9/11, it is clear that progress has been mixed.
Significant achievements in border security, information sharing, transportation
security, financial controls, and the killing or capture of numerous terrorist
leaders have reduced the threat. But the threat still remains, and state
sponsorship, the terrorist response to intervention in Iraq, improved terrorist
propaganda capabilities, the pursuit of nuclear weapons by state sponsors of
terrorism, and terrorist exploitation of grievances represent ongoing
challenges. Recent trends include the emergence of "guerrilla"
terrorism in parallel with traditional "expeditionary" approaches,
improved AQ propaganda warfare capacity, and emerging evidence of terrorist
"conveyor belt" that seeks to deliberately manipulate and exploit
grievances in at-risk populations.
A deeper trend is the shift in the nature of terrorism, from traditional
international terrorism of the late 20th century into a new form of
transnational non-state warfare that resembles a form of global insurgency. This
represents a new era of warfare, and countering this threat demands the
application of counterinsurgency techniques that focus on protecting, securing,
and winning the support of at-risk populations, in addition to targeting violent
extremist networks and individual terrorists.
Trusted networks of private and government organizations and individuals, and
the application of integrated civil-military measures across all elements of
national power are keys to this approach. Terrorist leaders, safe havens, and
the underlying conditions that terrorists exploit are the principal strategic
targets that we must address. The key success factor that has emerged so far is
commitment by governments to work with the international community, their own
populations, and at-risk immigrant or youth populations, to counter the threat
collaboratively.
Credit: United States Department
of State
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