TERROR'S NEXT STOP

International investigators are deeply divided on how big a presence the old Qaeda still is in the new-generation network--in other words, how much the budding terror groups merely coexist with it as opposed to taking orders. In Washington, officials tend to consider bin Laden mainly a symbolic presence now, especially as the U.S. military has just begun what many consider its final push to get him, launching Special Forces and units in Afghanistan and Pakistan last week. Foreign governments tend to believe that bin Laden and Zawahiri are more operationally active and in charge. The Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, says that officials in Saudi Arabia believe that terrorists who committed bombings there last spring were "definitely taking orders" from bin Laden. In Turkey, investigators also believe that the perpetrators of recent bombings were affiliates of Al Qaeda.

Questions about the alleged relationship between Zarqawi and bin Laden illustrate this debate. In the letter allegedly written by Zarqawi or his subordinate, carried by a man named Hassan Ghul, the writer defers to Al Qaeda as the lead group: "You, noble brothers, leaders of Jihad, we do not consider ourselves those who would compete against you..." But some analysts have argued that, instead of addressing Qaeda leaders as a supplicant or subordinate, the writer seems to be speaking to them as an equal. Even when he was in Afghanistan, Zarqawi had his own operation, a terror camp in the Afghan city of Herat.

Within U.S military intelligence, current opinion is that Zarqawi has maintained a significant degree of independence from Al Qaeda. And some U.S. intelligence officials now believe there is a serious and fundamental doctrinal split between what is left of the Qaeda leadership and Zarqawi. The latter, if his alleged memo is to be believed, thinks that killing fellow Muslims is a legitimate tactic in a long-term campaign to drive the United States and other infidels out of holy Muslim lands, whereas bin Laden is said to oppose that in principle.

After all the attacks, from New York to Baghdad to Madrid, this much is painfully clear: the threat is spreading over a wider and wider area. It's noteworthy that in the letter found on Ghul, the writer suggested that if the terror campaign failed in Iraq, the group could simply "pack up and go somewhere else." That's the sort of philosophy that once allowed Al Qaeda to be as deadly as it was--and that could make its successors equally frightening long after Al Qaeda is gone.

WITH MARK HOSENBALL, JOHN BARRY AND DANIEL KLAIDMAN IN WASHINGTON, MELINDA LIU AND SCOTT JOHNSON IN AMMAN AND BAGHDAD, CHRISTOPHER DICKEY IN LONDON AND OWEN MATTHEWS IN ISTANBUL

© 2004