The al-Qa'eda terror organisation of Osama bin Laden is as strong today as it was six years ago
during the September 11 attacks and retains the capability to carry out similar atrocities, according to a report by one of Britain's leading think tanks.
"Core" al-Qa'eda is proving adaptable and resilient and has retained the ability to plan and co-ordinate large-scale attacks in the Western world, says the Strategic Survey published yesterday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Nigel Inkster, a former director for operations and intelligence for MI6, who contributed to the al-Qa'eda section of the report, said it showed that the tactics being used in the war on terrorism were proving ineffective.
"The bottom line is that for six years the United States and its allies have been struggling to eliminate this threat and it is becoming increasingly clear that they have not succeeded in doing so," said Mr Inkster.
He pointed to last year's alleged plot to blow up planes bound for the United States from Heathrow, and the failed plot to launch suicide bomb attacks at Frankfurt airport and US military bases in Germany earlier this month as examples of al-Qa'eda's ability to plan and co-ordinate "catastrophic" attacks.
Mr Inkster said that, even if it was now more difficult for al-Qa'eda to carry out an attack on the scale of September 11, "the ambition and to some degree the capability to stage a spectacular operation is there".
While some al-Qa'eda leaders had argued that September 11 was a "tactical error" for prompting US forces to expel it and its Taliban hosts from Afghanistan, the organisation remained determined to carry out "spectacular" terror attacks on Western targets and was intensifying its efforts to radicalise young Muslims.
According to the report, al-Qa'eda has been successful in recruiting smaller jihadist groups that have sworn formal allegiance, while alleged plots uncovered in Europe, Canada, the Gulf and North Africa "point to a growing trend towards radicalisation with the Islamic world".
The report argues that the challenge for governments in Western and Muslim countries was to "confront" extremist ideology that gives rise to the terrorism promoted by al-Qa'eda and affiliates. They must tackle, for example, Muslim views of being victims of non-Muslim aggression.
