http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&ncid=716&e=5&u=/ap/20031123/ap_on_re_as/al_qaida_the_source<snip>RISHKHOR, Afghanistan - From Bali to Istanbul, New York to Casablanca, the ferocious chain of terror that has choked the world since Sept. 11 has stemmed from a single source — camps like this one just south of Kabul, where thousands of young men were indoctrinated in Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s brutal vision.
An Afghan link can be traced to nearly every major terrorist attack since the 2001 strikes in New York and at the Pentagon (news - web sites), although not all have been carried out directly by bin Laden's al-Qaida, U.S., European and Asian officials told The sociated Press.
Attacks like the ones in Turkey this past week, and others in Indonesia, Morocco, Tunisia and the Philippines, appear to have involved homegrown groups, sometimes working hand-in-hand with al-Qaida. Officials say some of the attacks carry the "hallmarks" of al-Qaida, a way of spreading the group's franchise throughout the world.
"Extremists were trained and either pledged their allegiance to bin Laden and al-Qaida or carried his message and inspiration back to their home countries to initiate more localized jihad efforts," said a U.S. intelligence report obtained by AP.
Between 15,000 and 20,000 people are believed to have trained at Afghan camps since 1996, when bin Laden returned to Afghanistan (news - web sites) from Sudan, said a U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Since the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Rishkhor and other al-Qaida camps have mostly been reduced to rubble, but the men who trained in them — including, allegedly, the two Turkish suicide bombers who detonated last week's synagogue explosions — are still pursuing their legacy of death.
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