A resilient Al-Qaeda can still plan and carry out "spectacular" attacks in Western countries even if it is harder to stage one on the scale of "9/11", an influential think tank said in a new report released on Wednesday.
"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," analyst Nigel Inkster said.
London - A resilient Al-Qaeda can still plan and carry out "spectacular" attacks in Western countries even if it is harder to stage one on the scale of "9/11", an influential think tank said in a new report released on Wednesday.
"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," analyst Nigel Inkster said.
Inkster helped write the annual "Strategic Survey" by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) report released on Wednesday.
It concluded Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda remained nearly the threat it was on September 11, 2001.
The IISS said the year to mid-2007 showed that "core Al-Qaeda is proving adaptable and resilient, and has retained the ability to plan and co-ordinate large-scale attacks in the Western world".
Smaller jihadist groups had sworn formal allegiance to Al-Qaeda while alleged plots uncovered in Europe, Canada, the Gulf and north Africa "point to a growing trend towards radicalisation within the Islamic world", it added.
Inkster, the IISS director of transnational threats and political risks, said some Al-Qaeda leaders argued that "9/11" was a "tactical error" for prompting US forces to expel it and its Taliban hosts from Afghanistan.
However, even if it is now more difficult for Al-Qaeda to carry out something on the scale of September 11, Inkster said "the ambition and to some degree the capability to stage a spectacular operation is there".
He cited an alleged plot foiled in England last year to blow up US-bound planes as an example of its ability to plan and co-ordinate such an attack that would have produced "catastrophic damage and significant economic impact".
He added that Al-Qaeda is gaining "strategic reach" in the "badlands" of north-west Pakistan where indigenous Pakistani extremist groups are aligning themselves with the network.
"We also see the process of radicalisation in Islamic communities around the world is continuing apace," he said.
The "Strategic Survey" said "long-term challenge" for governments in Western and Muslim countries to "confront" the extremist ideology which gives rise to the terrorism spread by Al-Qaeda.
They must tackle, for example, overwhelming Muslim perceptions that they are victims of non-Muslim aggression.
It questioned the approach of some governments in Muslim countries which try to "de-radicalise" young men by urging them to consider non-violent responses without challenging the premise that Muslims are victims of injustice.
"There will be a need to build political cultures that encourage aspirations for the fruits of modernity and success, something best done by leaders able to establish their political legitimacy," the survey said.
But it also faulted the approach of Western government which it said tend to rebut the Muslim argument of victimisation.
Such governments, the survey said, must "stimulate debates on interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims, and in particular on integration of Muslim minorities".
