"Osama bin Laden and other terrorists are still in hiding. Our message to them is clear: no matter how long it takes, America will find you, and we will bring you to justice."
- President George W Bush, September 11, 2006
"On the anniversary of 9/11, the trail [of bin Laden] is stone-cold."- US intelligence official
Osama bin Laden is on the move, and Tuesday's terror attack on the US Embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus, could be a tangible result of this.
Exclusive information obtained by Asia Times Online shows that the al-Qaeda leader recently traveled from the South Waziristan tribal area in Pakistan to somewhere in the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan, or possibly Bajour, a s mall tribal agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan in North-West Frontier Province.
According to a witness, bin Laden traveled in a double-cabin truck with a few armed guards - not in a convoy. Apparently, this is how he now prefers to move around.
Bin Laden, with a US$25 million bounty on his head, has not been sighted for some time, and he has not been seen on any new videotape since late 2004, although audio tapes purporting to be him speaking surfaced this year.
At the same time, a close aide responsible for bin Laden's logistics and media relations told Asia Times Online that bin Laden had recovered from serious kidney-related ailments.
In Tuesday's attack in Damascus, four men tried to drive two explosives-laden cars into the US Embassy compound. Four of them and a security official were killed. One of the cars exploded outside the compound.
The incident not only carries al-Qaeda hallmarks, it is also very much in line with the al-Qaeda leadership's focus, agreed on during the Israel-Hezbollah war, to extend the flames of conflict across the region.
In this vein, bin Laden's No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, warned on Monday that the Persian Gulf region and Israel would be the next targets of al-Qaeda. He was speaking in a video message released to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
In addition to bin Laden's improved health, al-Qaeda has in the past few months gained some breathing room to regroup and solidify its logistics as a result of the situation in the semi-autonomous North and South Waziristan tribal areas.
This area has long been home to al-Qaeda elements, but until recently they had been under intense pressure from Pakistan's security forces. However, as the tribals gained more strength - some Taliban-affiliated districts have even been declared independent of Islamabad - the authorities realized they were fighting a losing battle.
This culminated last week in security officials and the "Pakistani Taliban" agreeing to a temporary ceasefire. Previously choked channels between the Waziristans and other parts of Pakistan were now fully opened, allowing al-Qaeda to start moving money again.
The Bigger Playing Field
A new dynamic among militant groups has emerged in Egypt to complement al-Qaeda's designs in the Middle East. Tuesday's Damascus attack could also be an illustration of this.
Many youths previously associated with the militant Gamaa Islamiya of Egypt have formed independent cells, while some Egyptian youths of Palestinian origin have created underground organizations to target the pro-Israeli Egyptian government and US interests.
Credit goes to al-Qaeda that in the past six months it established inroads into these organizations, to the extent that they are now directly under the command of the al-Qaeda leadership.
This was confirmed by Zawahiri last month in a videotape aired on Al-Jazeera news network: "We announce to the Islamic nation the good news of the unification of a great faction of the knights of the Gamaa Islamiya ... with the al-Qaeda group."
Al-Qaeda has evolved into more of an ideological inspiration to sharpen Muslim reaction against the West and create a backlash than a militant group. Five years of the US-led "war on terror" damaged its structure and it was forced to melt into the local resistance movements of Iraq and Afghanistan. Already, the Taliban and Iraqi resistances complement each other, sharing experience, skills and even logistics.
From this position, al-Qaeda will work to bind all local resistance movements into one coordinated unit against the US and its allies, with the ultimate aim of creating a universal Muslim backlash against the West.
The Israel-Hezbollah war proved the ideal starting point for this plan. The successful defense of Lebanon by Hezbollah was largely taken in the Arab world as the first Arab victory against Israel. Sentiment on the streets of the Middle East turned noticeably against the US, Israel and pro-West Muslim rulers.
Al-Qaeda wants to keep this mood, and inflame it even further. Attacks like the one in Damascus could be such pot-boilers. More, and bigger, ones are most likely being plotted by the masterminds sitting in the tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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