NEW YORK -- Osama bin Laden has become the modern version, the evil twin, of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy's rescuer of French aristocrats from the guillotine. Lately, not a bomb explodes without it being blamed on bin Laden's al-Qaida organization. In recent weeks, Washington has accused al-Qaida of an attack on a French tanker, the killing of a U.S. Marine in Kuwait and the frightful bombing of a Bali discotheque.

Given these alarms, one would imagine al-Qaida to be a vast, octopoid organization whose tentacles span five continents. But this view, heavily promoted by the Bush administration and the U.S. media, is as wrong as George Bush's claim that terrorists are "on the run."

Al-Qaida, to repeat what this column has been saying since 9/11, is a small, tightly knit organization of about 300 hardened jihadis, or holy warriors, created as a role model, rallying point and ideological beacon for militant Islamic resistance movements around the globe.

The U.S. has been unable to destroy al-Qaida because of its small size, secretive nature and mobility. According to Pentagon reports, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan last October actually proved counter-productive because it scattered al-Qaida operatives far and wide, making it harder to locate or monitor them.

Only one senior al-Qaida figure, Mohammed Atef, has been killed. The alleged al-Qaida fighters so far arrested are either not al-Qaida, or mid-ranking members and small fry.

Osama bin Laden remains in hiding, probably on Pakistan's wild northwest frontier. So, too, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's chief operating officer, the real power behind the organization. Zawahiri was a doctor in Egypt until wrongfully arrested, jailed and savagely tortured. After being released, Zawahiri formed Islamic Jihad, a murderous underground organization that battled to overthrow the U.S.-backed regime of Gen. Hosni Mubarak.

New name

A small number of al-Qaida-run paramilitary camps in Afghanistan served as a training ground and social center for thousands of young Muslim men from many nations who came to fight for the Taliban or in a variety of jihads, or holy struggles, against what they viewed as oppression. All these groups were branded "al-Qaida terrorists" by U.S. government and media, though they were not part of al-Qaida and had nothing to do with the 9/11 outrages. The largest group was some 5,000 jihadis being trained by Pakistani intelligence for combat in the Indian-ruled portion of Kashmir, and a similar number of volunteers who had joined the Taliban to fight the Northern Alliance, which was the old Afghan Communist party under a new name.

There were 3,000 Uzbek fighters battling to overthrow Uzbekistan's brutal, communist dictatorship, and smaller numbers of jihadis from Indonesia, the Philippines, Muslim western China, North Africa, Bangladesh and other Islamic nations. They were either killed, captured, or scattered by U.S.- and Russian-backed forces.

During the 1980s, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia organized and financed 100,000 young Muslims from across the Islamic world to go fight in the Great Jihad in Afghanistan. I came to know many of these mujahedin, or holy warriors, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 1986, Sheik Abdullah Azzam, the spiritual and political mentor of Osama bin Laden, told me, "Once we have driven the Soviet imperialists from Afghanistan, we will go and liberate Saudi Arabia, and then Palestine, from western imperialism."

After the Soviet defeat, the mujahedin scattered. They became known as "Afghani," and were held in high esteem for their valor and faith. But when some of these veterans decided to try to overthrow the dictatorial regimes of the Muslim world, the U.S. and its regional allies branded them as "terrorists." Most of these "Afghani" kept in touch, creating an informal network of like-minded militants. While there is no formal linkage between al-Qaida and militant Islamic groups in Asia and Africa, an old-boys' network of war veterans allows for secure and effective communication, as well as occasional co-operation.

Black and white

Washington would like to blame all violent anti-western incidents on al-Qaida. Doing so is convenient and affords Americans a simple black-and-white image. Bin Laden and al-Qaida reinforce this erroneous view by applauding every anti-western attack, no matter how heinous or ineffective.

In reality, the U.S. now faces scores of violent anti-American groups from Morocco to Indonesia, inspired by Osama bin Laden's defiance, and enraged by the suffering of the Palestinians and Iraqis. President Bush's invasion of Afghanistan and his impending war against Iraq have spurred radical groups to violent action against western targets. The Bali bombing, for example, may well have been the long-threatened retaliation by Indonesian Islamic radicals against Australia for sending its SAS special forces to Afghanistan. The bombing was a horrifying, cowardly act, but so is dropping 1,000-kg bombs on villages and apartment buildings.

Due to increased security measures in North America and Europe, the "soft" targets of choice, as this writer has warned since last fall, may increasingly be western tourists, diplomats and businessmen.

Copyright © 2002, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe Inc

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