Articles

One of the most bitter ironies of the Iraq tragedy is that our occupation has been a godsend to Al Qaeda and its affiliates, drawing thousands of foreign fighters to the country over the past four years. As a result, jihadist terrorists have, for the first time, secured a substantial presence in a country at the heart of the Middle East. The Iraq war has also inspired a rising wave of terrorist attacks, from London to Kabul, and it has helped to spread militant ideas among Iraq’s Sunnis, who were previously more secular than most other Muslims in the region

Stepping onto the balcony of the governor’s mansion in Uruzgan in southern Afghanistan, you quickly grasp the scale of the drug problem gripping the country. Beginning at the walls of the mansion and stretching as far as the eye can see are hundreds of acres of poppy fields ready for harvesting for opium sap, pretty much the only way to earn a living in poverty-stricken Uruzgan.

The last thing that seven Iraqi policemen at a checkpoint in Ramadi in late July saw was a woman approaching them. Seconds later, she detonated her explosives vest, killing herself and everybody else at the site. Just two weeks earlier in Pakistan, some would-be female suicide bombers were less successful in martyring themselves. When government forces stormed Islamabad’s Red Mosque, several women were among the die-hards hoping to make a stand. “We wanted to carry out suicide attacks . . . but we didn’t have sufficient explosives,” one woman later regretfully told the BBC.

“Nie ma dowodow, ze Osama bin Laden nie zyje. Gdyby zginal, dzihadysci z pewnoscia rozglosiliby to z duma, bo stalby sie meczennikiem i chcieliby uczcic ten fakt. Gdyby go zlapano albo zabito, to nie daloby sie tej sprawy utrzymac w sekrecie” – mowi w wywiadzie dla DZIENNIKA Peter Bergen, amerykanski dziennikarz, specjalista ds terroryzmu i autor ksiazki Osama bin Laden.

Last year suicide bombings quintupled, attacks on international forces tripled, and support for the Taliban grew. According to CNN terror analyst and Taliban expert Peter Bergen, here are the top 10 entirely avoidable mistakes made by the Bush administration:

1 Letting Osama Escape Tora Bora: Because Donald Rumsfeld wanted a “light” footprint in Afghanistan, only 60 U.S. Special Forces were sent to smoke out bin Laden. During the 2004 reelection campaign, Bush implied that bin Laden wasn’t at Tora Bora at all-a claim publicly slapped down by the CIA’S on-scene commander, Gary Berntsen, a longtime Republican, who pleaded for additional forces, to no avail.

Two months ago, on a rainy afternoon in Islamabad, I paid a visit to the Red Mosque. Its militant imam, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was suddenly a force to be reckoned with in Pakistani politics, his students having recently undertaken a series of violent protests aimed at showing their contempt for the government of President Pervez Musharraf. The proximate cause of their anger was the demolition of several mosques in Islamabad that authorities said had been built without the required authorizations, but their agenda had broader elements, including a demand that Musharraf implement sharia law. Starting in January, Ghazi’s followers occupied a municipal library adjoining the Red Mosque. Meanwhile, masked students armed with batons visited video store owners and told them to close their businesses, while others destroyed CDs.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST (voice-over): Mistake number one, a big one, letting Osama bin Laden go. U.S. special forces had bin Laden cornered in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in late 2001. The CIA commander on the scene asked for more forces to catch al Qaeda’s leader, but was turned down. And bin Laden escaped.

Osama Bin Laden is a 21st century celebrity: international terrorist, radical Islamist icon, mass murderer. Like most of us, he cares about how he is perceived by others. He has a global audience, but is particularly interested in influencing Muslims. And, like celebrities, the character we see today is a careful product of marketing strategies designed to establish a brand – Al Qaida – and woo a niche audience of potential radical Islamists who can be persuaded to support or take militant action. For this reason it is essential we understand the man and his message. These three important books help do just that.

A JOURNEY AMONG SUICIDE BOMBERS, FEMINIST GOVERNORS, AND ACRES AND ACRES OF POPPIES. Afghan Spring by Peter Bergen Post date: 06.06.07 Issue date: 06.18.07 This January, somewhere in Logar Province, 40 miles south of Kabul, a 20-year-old goat herder named Imdadullah strapped on a bulky black waistcoat lined with packages of TNT. The packages were […]

WASHINGTON – Experts studying the use of IEDs that have wreaked havoc among U.S. troops in Iraq warn that the deadly bombs will likely be exploding here sometime in the near future.

“There are going to be a bunch of p——off Iraqis and foreign fighters, and I think it’s just inevitable they’re going to try it here,” terrorism expert Peter Bergen told the Daily News. “It could be five years from now or 10 years from now, but that’s the potential threat.”