Attacks Bear Earmarks Of Evolving Al Qaeda

Indeed, Zarqawi's pledge to bin Laden has offered a model of the new kind of al Qaeda outsourcing. "From al Qaeda's point of view, it makes it look like they're in on the biggest action going right now in Iraq," said the former U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "From Zarqawi's point of view, it's brand recognition -- you're a franchisee, whether Burger King or al Qaeda."

Both bin Laden and Zarqawi have emphasized two prominent themes in their approach to the Iraq war: driving a wedge between the United States and its allies, and bleeding American and allied economies. Both goals may be reflected in yesterday's London attacks.

Bin Laden and some of his lieutenants have strongly emphasized economic issues related to Iraq in recent postings and speeches. Bin Laden believes that he and his followers helped destroy the Soviet Union by tying its 40th Army down in a long, costly war in Afghanistan during the 1980s. These days bin Laden says again and again that he intends to do the same to the United States and its allies in Iraq. In his videotaped speech to the American people last November, on the eve of the U.S. election, he boasted of "the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan."

Some terrorism analysts said bin Laden's role as inspiration -- if not direct commander -- of the British operation appears clear.

"It doesn't matter whether it's al Qaeda-directed or al Qaeda-inspired. The long-term effect on the jihadist movement is likely to be the same from the attacks: a source of recruitment, inspiration and motivation," said Roger Cressey, a former senior counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations.

"I do not really believe there is such a thing as al Qaeda, the organization; there is al Qaeda, the mindset," said Yosri Fouda, senior investigative reporter in London for the al-Jazeera satellite television network, the only journalist known to have interviewed Sept. 11 planners Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. "This is what I find much scarier. Your ability to predict is reduced to a minimal level."

Terrorism specialists said the current threat in Europe was from a new generation of recruits who might be much less connected to the core of al Qaeda.

"The cells that are forming are getting younger, and they're forming over the Internet," in a significant change from the profile of the jihadist recruit prior to Sept. 11, when al Qaeda often relied on more mature veterans of its Afghan training facilities, Sageman said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp., a research institution, said the State Department asserts that as many as 4,000 terrorism suspects have been arrested worldwide since Sept. 11, 2001. "But they are being replaced as fast as we can kill or capture them," he said. "Al Qaeda has this capacity to sustain itself. Even if they are reduced as an organization, they've been able to enlist any number of others to do their bidding."

The tactics and targeting in the London bombings may also suggest what Rand Beers, a former White House counterterrorism official and adviser to last year's Democratic presidential campaign, calls the "devolution" of al Qaeda. "We've seen a willingness to engage in smaller, less iconic kinds of targets," said Beers, noting that attacks like those in Madrid and London were technically unsophisticated and inexpensive to mount, yet they caused devastation and panic in just minutes.

It isn't clear whether the London attacks involved suicide bombers or timed explosives left in place, but either way, operations of this kind do not require advance training or long periods of time to execute, according to bomb-making specialists.

"We didn't see anyone try to fly into Buckingham Palace or take down the [British Telecom] tower," said Daniel Benjamin, a former White House counterterrorism official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It doesn't show that kind of need to top oneself that al Qaeda has shown in the past" when bin Laden and other key leaders had more time and space to plan their operations.

Even the relatively unsophisticated nature of the attacks in London has generated soul-searching about whether effective countermeasures exist against an Islamic extremist movement that appears able to "self-generate" new terrorists, as a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official put it. "The impact of it is significant. It shows they have been able to overcome a well-developed security architecture in London," the former official said. "It shows that al Qaeda and associated groups and fellow travelers still have the ability to conduct an effective operation."

Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.