New Al-Qaeda Terror Tactics

Dutch weekly news magazine Elsevier reports (Dutch language alert) on its website that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is changing its strategy from large-scale terrorist attacks a la 9/11 or 7/7 to smaller strikes like last years failed underwear bomber and last months air-freight bombs. Al-Qaeda has realized - some years after the rest of the world caught on - that 9/11 attacks are rather difficult to pull off succesfully. These small attacks are cheaper and easier to plan so Al-Qaeda can, with equal resources, plot more attacks. And by the fundamental laws of probability a few of these attacks should succeed. It is almost impossible for Western security and intelligence services to stop each and everyone of them. Moreover, a succesfull small-scale attack will have disruptive effects disproportionate to its costs. A single bomb exploding in a western shopping centre, train, or airplane will lead to people adjusting their lives out of fear. After two or three, they will start avoiding crowded places all together. So for a fraction of the cost and effort of planning 9/11, Al-Qaeda will have caused more chaos and sowed more terror than on that September morning.

Like I said this strategy - called 'the strategy of death by a thousand cuts'  or 'Operation Internal Haemorrhage - is being implemented by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This subordinate affiliate of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is overtaking its parent organisation as the main perpetrator of terror attacks. With the disruption of Al Qaeda's activities by the military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the junior group is becoming the greatest threat to the Western world. It makes sense for Al-Qaeda - whose organisatory system is cell-based with each cell being independent of the others - for such a subordinate group to take over if the main (Afghan-based) group is compromised. The change of strategy by AQAP should be a signal for the West to rethink its own counter-strategy. While the War in Afghanistan should continue - and as I wrote yesterday even stepped up - Yemen should become a new front in the larger War on Terror. It is imperative that AQAP is not given the opportunity to implement its new strategy.

The first signs that this is a serious new threat are visible in Germany where reports about impending attacks have led security forces there to ramp of surveillance of train stations and airports. But other islamic terror threats remain. Security services are also warning of 'Mumbai-style' attacks, with heavily-armed gunmen storming a building looking to kill as many people in a surprise attack before security forces can react. Warnings about this have been given by German government officials (Dutch language alert) who hinted that the Reichstag may be the likely target. A similar plot is seen as imminent by British authorities, who have drawn up contingency plans in case the Houses of Parliament come under attack.

All this shows that, although it has been relatively quiet on the terror front in Europe and the United States recently, we can not rest easy, content that no attacks will take place and that islamic terrorism is being contained outside our borders. Like they say in second-rate thrillers and horror films just before someone gets killed: "it's a little too quiet". We may be in the calm before the storm and when it finally comes, that storm may rage more violent than before.