Al Qaeda's Summer Plans

U.S. intelligence has had plenty of help from abroad. Millions of dollars spread across the Arab world have encouraged the cooperation of intelligence services as well as potential informants. Even while the governments of Germany and France were feuding with the United States at the United Nations last fall, the French and German security services were continuing to cooperate with the CIA and FBI, in part because the Qaeda threat is every bit as real in Europe as it is in the United States.

It is not always possible to separate the good guys from the bad guys in the war on terror. Al Qaeda has sympathizers and outright spies planted in many places. In Yemen, a number of top Qaeda operatives, including several involved in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, somehow managed to escape from jail on April 11. In Saudi Arabia, a bungled police raid allowed 19 Qaeda suspects to get away--to stage a bombing a week later. Had they been tipped off? The war on terror will never be neat or clear-cut. Nor will it be short. "These people have a different sense of time," says a senior intelligence official. "They hark back to the Crusades. For them, the jihad is never-ending."

WITH MARK HOSENBALL AND TAMARA LIPPER IN WASHINGTON, CHRISTOPHER DICKEY IN PARIS, TOM MASLAND IN LEBANON AND EMILY FLYNN IN LONDON

© 2003