'No point capturing bin Laden'

2005-01-09 08:28

Paris - The capture of Osama bin Laden, head of the al-Qaeda network, remains a major United States aim but will not be enough to end worldwide Islamic "terrorism," say politicians and specialists.

Bin Laden has escaped his pursuers for years without losing his ability to maintain a high profile, remain on the world stage, and launch fatwas.

To his supporters and sympathisers he has become a symbol, the very incarnation of an ideology that will survive his capture or death.

"We must not suppose that the day we catch Bin Laden will mean the disappearance of terrorism," said French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie.

"Catching him will change nothing for world terrorism, which is to be found today in networks in a large number of countries."

Arrest won't change anything

Steve Simon, former head of the Transnational Threats division of the US National Security Council, agrees:

"Arresting Bin Laden would change nothing," he said. "Even if we would have arrested him in Tora Bora, it would have been already too late because he had already brought down the World Trade Centre."

"After this 'magnificent' act, his ideology had already metastased," said Simon, now an analyst with the Rand Corporation:

Bin Laden was reported to have narrowly evaded capture at Tora Bora in the Afghan Mountains in December 2001.

"He is still the Emir, and now arresting or killing him would not change his influence on Muslims around the world for years and years to come. Killed, he will be a martyr, maybe even more powerful," Simon suggested.

Alex Standish, editor of the London publication Jane's Intelligence Digest, said: "What is very difficult for people in the West to understand is this has gone beyond being a militant organisation. It's now an international ideology, in the same way communism was an ideology, fascim was an ideology."

Ideological movement

Al Qaeda was never a western-style organisation, Standish continued:

"It's an ideological mouvement, in the same way that during the Cold War one could be a Marxist without being member of the Communist Party."

Bin Laden has "tremendous moral, ideological authority with his supporters. Whenever he makes announcements, these are listened to," said Standish:

Specialists also agree that Bin Laden's aura and influence have grown larger because American policy of "war on terrorism" with its perceived violence in Iraq and elsewhere causes alienation among Arabs and other Islamics.

"It's always easier to personify an enemy, demonise him. That enables you to avoid having to ask questions about your own possible share in responsibility for the movement that he embodies," said Francois Burgat, a research fellow at France's National Scientific Research Centre, the CNRS, and an expert on Islamic radicalism:

"Since September 11 the United States has responded only in security terms, but not in political terms. Until it does, nothing basic will change," Burgat warned.

The seizure or death of bin Laden would at least put an an end to a saga of pursuit and escape on an epic scale that adds daily, on fundamentalist websites, to the growing mystique of the head of al Qaeda.

- AFP