The death of Osama bin Laden will have little effect on the growth of al-Qaida because new recruits now connect with jihad through the Internet, terrorism expert and award-winning journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave tells Newsmax.TV.
The Newsmax international correspondent also said he expects al-Qaida to launch revenge attacks against the United States in the months or years to come with a series of relatively small coordinated assaults at places such as shopping malls that would paralyze and terrify the nation.
De Borchgrave was commenting in the aftermath of the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, 35 miles from the Pakistani capital. The raid, ordered by President Barack Obama, killed the al-Qaida leader who had eluded death or capture for more a decade since escaping from his mountain hideout at Tora Bora.
De Borchgrave said people are suggesting this is “the beginning of the end of al-Qaida, I would suggest it is not.”
“Many of the youngsters get turned on to becoming radicals by watching what’s happening on the internet where they feel they belong to some kind of global al-Qaida-type organization but not with the patron saint being Osama bin Laden. It’s not the way the thing works anymore,” he said. “That’s why I feel this is going to have very little impact on al-Qaida.”
De Borchgrave added that the new generation doesn’t relate to bin Laden, “They relate to what they see happening on the internet which is extremely attractive to young Muslims living in France, or living in Belgium, Holland the UK. These are people who go to Pakistan for training, all of that, I think, will continue unimpeded.”
De Borchgrave, who heads up the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said U.S. intelligence long believed that bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan with the protection of elements of the Pakistani government.
“He was obviously enjoying protection on high,” he said.
While the core element of al-Qaida is now located in the tribal areas along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan with branches in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, and Somalia, de Borchgrave said there is no central control or command with far-flung branches reporting back to Pakistan.
He said he would not be surprised by revenge attacks but noted that large, 9/11 type assaults have been made extremely difficult through security increases.
“What I do see happening in the months or years to come are four or five incidents in major shopping malls happening simultaneously in widely scattered parts of the United States,” he said. “It’s not that difficult to get a suicide bomber into these malls and to kill 10, 15, 20 people. If that were to happen in five locations widely separated around the United States you could imagine what would happen. Witness what happened with one sniper in the Washington area a few years ago.”
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