Local groups giving Qaeda strength, analysis finds

[LARED]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2003/11/21/local_groups_giving_qaeda_strength_analysis_finds?mode=PF

WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda's senior leadership and support base has suffered major blows since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the extremist movement has adapted quickly to mount more frequent strikes than before by recruiting local groups to hit more varied and vulnerable targets, according to a recent US intelligence analysis and current and former intelligence officials.

The twin bombings yesterday against British targets in Turkey -- the fourth coordinated suicide attack with suspected Al Qaeda fingerprints in less than two weeks -- were yet another hallmark of an evolving terror network that has become more decentralized and less reliant on a top-down structure, but is also harder to rein in, the officials said.

Al Qaeda followers are believed to be unable to launch an operation similar in scale to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks largely because the US-led war on terrorism has reduced the group's funding and movement. But the terror network has shown an ability to carry out low-tech attacks using conventional explosives on civilian targets.

The US-led efforts against the terrorist group "will hasten the evolution of Al Qaeda from a network bound by a centralized control model of dominant figures with strong jihadist pedigrees to again look more like that movement of loosely knit groups headed by talented operational coordinators making local operational decisions," according to the recent report compiled by a US intelligence agency and obtained by the Globe. "They will seek consultation, but not direction, from other like-minded jihadists."

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This evolving strategy also appears to include attacks on low-profile targets such as hotels, synagogues, and other facilities not as heavily guarded as landmarks and government buildings.




The US seems one step closer to an I/P type of existence.