Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been hogging global headlines for his unsuccessful attempt to blow up a passenger aircraft over Detroit. What alarmed authorities was the fact that metal detectors were not able to sense the chemical he planned to detonate on board. The intelligence network has also been under fire for letting a potential terror attack slip through, in spite of some warning signs and possible leads.
There are some important issues that the incident raised, the consequences of which might be more alarming than presently conceived, as the Nigerian national has been found to have links to al-Qaeda.
George Friedman of STRATFOR offers this analysis: “All Muslims are not members of al Qaeda, but all members of al Qaeda are Muslims, and any Muslim might be a member of al Qaeda.”
al-Qaeda, apparently, has ceased to be just a band of Muslim terrorists. It has become a brand. Even if the original al-Qaeda group is now diminishing in number and splintered apart, the brand is carried by extremists in general. The terrorist cause and ideology have now transcended the terrorist group.
The threat from al-Qaeda may now come from anywhere in the world. Its origins and machinery may no longer be easily detected and defined. So long as there is a religious fundamentalist with anger fired up by the jihadist ideology, there is a huge possibility for attacks from terrorists.
Now, more than ever, nobody really knows how a terrorist looks like and from where he or she can come. The old structure and assumptions of intelligence networks are apparently outdated, a handicap in combating terrorism in the world today.
The issue of 9/11 has been deeply mired in too much politics. Terrorists apparently kept themselves busy recruiting and training jihadists amidst all the debate surrounding 9/11 and all its consequences and implications.
Hence, the terrorist movement is alive and functioning, even if attempts have been rather feeble lately. This makes terrorism an ever-present and even clearer danger. The terror threat endures.
Image Source: United States Marshals
Wikimedia Commons
