Terrorism's New Mecca

Terrorism's new Mecca; Religious terrorists are now mobilizing in Iraq, finding recruits among Muslims who feel humiliated by their U.S. occupiers, says security specialist Jessica Stern.

The war in Iraq was swifter and less bloody than even its proponents expected.  A vicious tyrant and his totalitarian regime were removed from power, much to the relief of the Iraqi people and much of the rest of the world.  But the war's aftermath is far more troubling.  Through ignorance and negligence, the United States has created a weak state, unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens' most rudimentary needs, precisely the sort of situation the Bush administration correctly described as a breeding ground for terrorists.

Even before the United States initiated the war, a revivialist, Islamist movement was growing in Iraq, as it was in othe rparts of the world.  Nonetheless, few Iraqis were supporters of al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups.  Now, Iraqis say, increasing rage at perceived atrocities committed by U.S. troops, coupled with the ongoing lack of basic services and security, are fomenting strong anti-American sentiment, persuading some Sunnis to join the swelling ranks of home-grown Islamist guerrilla groups or support the foreign mujhadeen who have arrived to fight their common enemy - America.

Osama bin Laden has long tried to demonstrate to potential supporters that the United States is engaged in a crusade against the Islamic world.  The unprovoked attack on Iraq, followed by an occupation that is widely perceived as inept, is confirming this view among potential sympathizers.  Every time U.S. troops shoot into a crowd, even in self-defence, it reconfirms the image of America as a reckless, ruthless oppressor.  Even those Iraqis who saw Americans as liberators during the first heady days after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power now see America as an ignorant, brutal, occupying power.

Not surprisingly, terrorist recruiters are using the war and the continuing occupation to mobilize recruits - not only inside Iraq, but outside as well.  Baghdad could well come to serve the same role that Peshawar did during the 1980's - as a Mecca for international jihadists.

There is some evidence that this transformation is already under way.  Before the war, Saddam's forces saw foreign volunteers who came into Iraq as troublemakers, and reportedly killed many of them.  But foreign volunteers are now welcomed, especially in the former Baathist strongholds.  Saad al-Faqih, head of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, a Saudi dissident group in London told me that the operation to bring in the mujahadeen is well-planned, with "very effective" logistical arrangements.

U.S. troops destroyed the Northern Iraqi camps run by Ansar al-Islman - a group closely associated with al-Qaeda - early in the war.  But Hamid Mir, Osama bin Laden's "official biographer" told me that al-Qaeda has established new training camps in the border region between Iraq and Syria.  In late August, U.S. troops arrested a self-described member of al-Qaeda.  The operative, who was found with 11 surface-to-air missiles, acknowledged that he had been training with Ansar al-Islam fighters to use the weapons against U.S. troops.

Intelligence officials in the United States, Europe and Africa report that the new recruits are younger, with a more menacing attitude.

To understand  this, it is worth considering the causes of terrorism.  Several possible root causes have been identified, including, among others, poverty, lack of education, abrogation of human rights, the perception that the enemy is weak-willed.  I've been interviewing terrorists around the world over the past five years.  Those I interviewed cite many reasons for choosing a life of holy war, and I came to despair of identifying a single root cause of terrorism.  But the variable that came up most frequently was not poverty or human-rights abuses, but perceived humiliation.  Humiliation emerged at every level of the terrorist groups I studied - leaders and followers.

The "New World Order" is a source of humiliation for Muslims.  And for the youth of Islam, it is better to carry arms and defend their religion with pride and dignity than to sumit to this humiliation.  Part of the mission of jihad is to restore Mulims' pride in the face of humiliation.  Violence, in other words, restores the dignity of humiliated youth.  Its target audience is not necessarily the victims and their sympathizers, but the perpetrators and their sympathizers.  Violence is a way to strengthen support for the organization and the movement it represents.

The word humiliation, alas, is now coming up in Iraq as well.  Baghdad is of profound symbolic importance to Muslims because it was the capital of the Islamic world during the golden age of Islamic civilization.  Televised pictures of American soldiers and their tanks in Baghdad are a "deeply humiliating scene to Muslims" explains Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih, who calls the war in Iraq a "gift" to Osama bin Laden.

The Bush administration intended to create a safer world and an Iraq more responsive to its people's needs.  But the administration made many mistakes.  It was dangerously naive in its apparent assumption that military victory alone would facilitate its objectives.  The U.S. approach in the lead-up to the war was brazen, arrogant, and disingenuous.  It needlessly offended its European allies.  It failed to persuade the world that it had evidence of Iraq's weapons programs or its links with al-Qaeda.  There is strong reason to suspect that its intelligence was politicized.  Europe is, understandably, suspicious of American motives now.

But Europe must come to see America as it is - not as a malevolent hegemony - but a bumbling one that badly needs assistance in Iraq.  Leaving Iraq now would make a bad situation worse - not only for the long-suffering Iraqis, but for America and Europe, as well.

The world cannot afford a weak state in Iraq.  The growing strength of the terrorist groups, mobilized, in part, by the occupation of Iraq, will be felt, alas, around the globe, especially if those terrorists do manage to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Jessica Stern, a lecturer at Harvard's John F. Kennedly School of Government, is the author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill.