Terrorism: Can Al-Qaeda Find A New Nest?

To do their worst, terrorists need a sanctuary. The next order of battle is to deny them one

By Johanna Mcgeary Monday, Dec. 24, 2001

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    PAKISTAN: Right next door to Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous and unsettling spots the terrorists could choose. President Pervez Musharraf, having thrown his lot in with Washington, is under keen pressure to bottle up fleeing al-Qaeda men. His government has made valiant efforts lately to seal the long, porous border. But once fugitives from Afghanistan make it across, they will find broad pockets of sympathy throughout the provinces of Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier. In those semiautonomous tribal areas, Islamabad's authority has been limited, though army presence has been beefed up recently.

    The terrorist assault on India's Parliament last week, in which the five attackers and seven Indians were killed, exposed just how complex and politically delicate it will be to control the terrorist net in Pakistan. The government has long armed and approved jihadis in Kashmir, though it admits only to providing diplomatic and moral support. The jihadis are considered freedom fighters by Pakistan but employ what India refers to as "cross-border terrorism" in their drive to expel India from the territory that Pakistan also claims. After Sept. 11, the Pakistani intelligence service sent signals to the Kashmir saboteurs to cool it. Yet India believes one of the three main radical groups almost certainly dispatched the suicide gunmen last week on their brazen assault against the center of India's democracy. Pakistan may now have to confront its sponsorship of groups that employ terrorist tactics in Kashmir. Ditching the Taliban was simple in comparison.

    Meanwhile, elements of al-Qaeda could move in under cover of these groups--or worse yet, try to find a friendly home there by joining forces with Pakistan's hard-line religious parties to overthrow Musharraf and install an Islamic regime. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal alone makes that an alluring goal. For his survival, Musharraf will have to get Pakistan out of the terrorism business.

    SOMALIA: The failed state in the Horn of Africa looks tailor-made for a hangout for al-Qaeda. The country has no central government to speak of. Like Afghanistan, it's divided into fiefdoms presided over by competing clan leaders and warlords whose temporary loyalties can readily be bought. Muslim by faith, most Somalis are impoverished nomads who move between temporary huts. And Somalia has a homegrown militant group called al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Unity of Islam) that the U.S. says is linked to al-Qaeda. The group was once host to a few training camps near the Kenyan border and in the semiautonomous northeastern area known as Puntland.

    Washington took the possibility that al-Qaeda could regroup in Somalia seriously enough to start patrolling the sea lanes a month ago. Forces from an allied flotilla stop and search 30 to 40 ships a day to make sure no fugitive terrorists are sneaking across. Naval vessels that can intercept communications hover in the Arabian Sea to cut off al-Qaeda messages and disrupt possible supply shipments.

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