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THE SUSPECTS
N AT I O N A L P O S T, W E D N E S D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 0 1

BIN LADEN BELIEVES TERROR IS HIS HEAVENLY DECREE

The legions that hate America
JIHAD HAS MANY FACES
Some experts say attacks might have been too complex for bin Laden
B Y S T E WA R T B E L L

PRIME SUSPECT
Saudi contractors son, radicalized in his youth, is worlds most wanted man
BY ISABEL VINCENT

As smoke billowed from New York and Washington after yesterdays surprise terrorist attacks, blame fell quickly on Osama bin Laden but the list of suspects is longer than that. There is no shortage of fanatics around the world who would love to cause mayhem in the heart of America, from the Japanese Red Army to Colombias FARC rebels to the Palestinian guerrillas at war with Israel. And it must be recalled that after the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, bin Laden was immediately ngered as the culprit, until investigators discovered those responsible were American militia types angry over the Waco siege. Few organizations, however, have the sophistication, antiAmerican fervour and callous disregard for civilians necessary to pull off the type of co-ordinated hijacking-suicide attacks witnessed yesterday. The exception is those groups and governments involved in the jihad, the global holy war whose foot soldiers believe it is their religious duty to battle Americans and Jews. Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi recluse who defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan and went on to launch a global holy war against American inuence, is without question a key gure in the jihad. But in the absence of rm evidence, it may be simplistic to lay the blame entirely at his feet. Isolated in Afghanistan and closely watched by Western intelligence agents, he is not necessarily the puppet master of international terrorism many make him out to be. Rather, he is the most visible and well-known face of a worldwide Islamic-inspired terrorist movement whose misguided followers believe violence is justied to counter what they consider to be the worlds anti-Islamic forces, namely the United States, Israel and their allies.
See LIST on Page D4

The Wests anger at yesterdays horrible terrorist attacks raged against one man, Osama bin Laden a shadowy Saudi-born militant who for the past ve years has actively declared holy war against the United States from bases in Afghanistan and Sudan. Bin Laden believes terror is his heavenly decree, and in the last few years, he has reportedly nanced some of the most devastating terrorist attacks against U.S. installations. Three years ago, he founded the International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders, and is now one of the key backers of an army of thousands of Islamic fundamentalists willing to die in the jihad, or holy war, against the United States and its allies. In addition to yesterdays attacks in New York and Washington, bin Laden has been blamed for the 1996 terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia that resulted in the deaths of 19 U.S. soldiers, and has been indicted in a U.S. court for his alleged role in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people. Terrorism experts believe he was behind last years attack on the USS Cole, an American warship stationed in Yemen, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. He is also implicated in the December, 1992, attack on a Yemeni hotel that injured several tourists and in an assassination attempt on Hosni Mubarak, then the Egyptian president, in Ethiopia in June 1995. Reacting to the U.S. embassy attacks in Africa three years ago, former U.S. president Bill Clinton called bin Laden the pre-eminent organizer and nancier of international terrorism in the world today. In retaliation for the bombings, the United States then launched cruise missiles against terrorist objectives in Sudan and Afghanistan. Terrorism experts believe militant Islamic regimes in Sudan and Afghanistan have been colluding with bin Laden for years to attack U.S. installations worldwide. Over the last 20 years, both countries have been instrumental to bin Ladens rise in the radical Islamist underground. To thousands of fundamentalist Muslims around the world, bin Laden is a great hero who has bankrolled radical Muslim groups from Afghanistan to the Balkans to Chechnya. He has paid for the training of thousands of young militant Muslims in camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has close ties to some of the radical Muslim worlds strongest leaders and to sworn enemies of the United States, including Iraqs Saddam Hussein. In the West, he is public enemy number one today, the worlds most wanted man. To date, bin Laden is the only terrorist leader to have formally declared a jihad holy war against the United States, says Yossef Bodansky, a military analyst and the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. And he has done so numerous times since 1996, reinforcing his original call to arms with additional and more specic decrees as his theological and command authority has grown. Yet the man for whom the U.S. government has put up a US$5million bounty does not quite t the mould of the evil genius intent on the destruction of the worlds greatest superpower.
See BIN LADEN on Page D2

INSIDE
THE BASE
Bin Laden and his army of 3,000 have a secure home in Afghanistan. Page D2

ISLAMS EXTREMISTS
The Washington Posts Charles Krauthammer defines the enemy: Its name is radical Islam. Not Islam as practised peacefully by millions of the faithful around the world. But a specific fringe political movement

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Osama bin Laden is shown in April, 1998, in Afghanistan. The terrorist leader reportedly lives modestly in a cave in eastern Afghanistan with his four wives and some 15 children.

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NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

Bin Laden is the only terrorist leader to have formally declared a jihad holy war against the United States. And he has done so numerous times since 1996, reinforcing his original call to arms with additional and more specic decrees

BIN LADEN, AFGHANISTAN HAVE CLOSE TIES

SYMPATHETIC REGIME
B Y PA T C H E N B A R S S

ZAHID HUSSEIN / REUTERS

Afghanistans ruling Taleban Foreign Minister, Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, left, speaks with his aides yesterday, prior to a press conference in which he condemned the attacks.

Shyman with a savage reputation

BIN LADEN
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The convicted terrorists who have worked for his various terrorist organizations around the world, and the few, mostly Arab, journalists who have met and interviewed him, describe him as a painfully shy and modest businessman in his mid-forties. With his white robes and beard, he looks not unlike a pious Muslim cleric in the rare black-and-white news photographs taken of him in the last ten years. Today, he reportedly lives a modest life in a cave in eastern Afghanistan along with his four wives and some 15 children. Yet the fanatical Muslim militant who has repeatedly said that he is ghting for the greater glory of Allah in his mission to destroy the indel United States, spent much of his youth in the sixties doing the kinds of things that he rails against today. According to one of his biographers, bin Laden spent his younger years hanging out in Beirut nightclubs, where he developed a reputation as a womanizer and heavy drinker, often enmeshed in Hemingwayesque bar brawls. His devotion to Islam reportedly came later, in the mid 1970s, after the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon. Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, probably in 1957. At the time, his father, Muhammad bin Laden, was a small-time builder and contractor who had arrived in Saudi Arabia from his native Yemen in search of employment. During the 1960s, the bin Laden family moved to Hijaz in the western part of Saudi Arabia and eventually settled in Al-Medina Al-Munawwara where Osama, one of Muhammed bin Ladens 50 children, received most of his formal education. Bin Laden pres fortunes were greatly improved following the oil boom of the 1970s, which cemented his business connections with Saudi royalty. In fact, bin Laden senior established close contacts with the Royal House of al-Saud as both a builder and a provider of what one terrorism expert described asdiscreet services such as the laundering of payments from the royal family to special training and, some believe, terrorist causes around the world.
See BIN LADEN on Page D3

If Osama bin Laden was indeed responsible for yesterdays attacks on the United States, then the campaign was likely co-ordinated from his traditional safe haven within the country of Afghanistan. Not only is bin Laden the top suspect in the attacks in New York and Washington, he is also thought to be behind the recent suicide bombing of the last remaining opposition leader in Afghanistan. Ninety percent of that country is controlled by the Taleban, a repressive religious regime that is sympathetic to bin Laden. The only opposition to the Taleban is a group called the United Front. Yesterday, though, The New York Times reported that the charismatic leader of that opposition, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was unconscious or dead after being attacked by suicide bombers posing as journalists. The Times called Mr. Massoud, 48, the glue that holds the remaining antiTaleban forces together. The attack on Mr. Massoud was a strategic strike that may serve both to solidify the Talebans hold on Afghanistan, and increase bin Ladens power within the Taleban. Mutual sympathy between bin Laden, one of the worlds most wanted terrorists, and Afghanistan, one of the worlds most repressive countries, goes back a long way. Bin Laden became a military hero to the Afghans during their war against the Soviet Union, which began in 1979. Shortly after he arrived to join the resistance, he told an Arab journalist, One day in Afghanistan was like 1,000 days of praying in an ordinary mosque. Bin Laden reputedly fought in numerous battles during the Afghan war against the Soviets as a guerrilla commander, including the battle of Jalalabad, which forced Soviets nally to withdraw from Afghanistan. After the war, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, his country of birth, but he continued to run the organization Al Qaeda, which he had created in part to raise military and monetary support for Afghanistan. Bin Laden was eventually forced to ee Saudi Arabia because of his opposition to the Saudis co-operation with the United States. He rst returned to Afghanistan, then went to the Sudan. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda evolved into an international terror organization, and a training camp for Islamic rebels waging the jihad, or holy war. In 1996, bin Laden relocated its centre of operations from the Sudan back to Afghanistan. He now reportedly has about 3,000 Arab radicals from 12 different countries there. This year, bin Laden spoke of Afghanistan to his followers in a videotaped message. There is now a Muslim state that enforces Gods law, which destroys falsehood, and which does not succumb to the American indels and it is led by a true believer, Mullah Mohammed Omar [the Taleban leader], the commander of the Faithful, he said. The Taleban also has a long and positive memory of bin Ladens afliation with their country. Let me tell you something about Osama, he didnt just come to Afghanistan. He has been here for the past 14 years off and on, Abdul Sattar Paktis, a Foreign Ministry representative of the Taleban, told the press in 1998. He is our guest, and we will never force him out. So far, bin Laden and Al Qaeda have denied responsibility for yesterdays attacks. Afghanistan has also denied involvement, and a Taleban diplomat has expressed his organizations sympathy. We want to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain. We hope the courts nd justice, ambassador Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said in a statement yesterday. Such denials are prudent, as the Americans have reputedly warned that they would retaliate against Afghanistan for any terrorist activities attributed to bin Laden or Al Qaeda.
National Post, with les from news services

ALI JAREKJI / REUTERS

Muslim pilgrims at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The construction company owned by bin Ladens father renovated and rebuilt several mosques.

NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

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The man who says he is waging war for the greater glory of Allah in his mission to destroy the indel United States is described by journalists who have met him as painfully shy

REUTERS

Osama bin Laden holds a weapon in a frame from a video obtained by Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-Aam in June. The video, made by the Osama bin Laden organization, shows the leader and other fighters in training, and claims responsibility for and praises last years bombing of the U.S. warship USS Cole.

Bin Laden radicalized by Lebanon, Afghanistan

BIN LADEN
Continued from Page D2

Bin Laden Construction became one of the biggest construction companies in the Middle East. In the late 1970s, it was involved in the building of roads, mosques, airports and the entire infrastructure of many of the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. Muhammed bin Laden was accorded special status when the House of al-Saud awarded him the contracts to renovate and rebuild the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina. The experience reportedly had a strong spiritual effect on him that soon ltered down to his son, who studied management and economics at King Abdul Aziz University in Jedda, one of Saudi Arabias best business schools. In a 1998 report, Yoram Schweitzer, of the International Policy Institute on Counter-Terrorism, declared that "the principal danger presented by the phenomenon of "sub-state" supporters of terror like bin Ladin is the combination of tremendous nancial resources coupled with an extremist ideology backed, in his view, by heavenly decree; an ideology which advocates the wholesale slaughter. The massive political and military dislocations that began in Muslim world in the mid-1970s greatly affected the young bin Laden. The outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 prevented his regular visits to Beirut, then the chic club capital of the Arab world, where thousands of young, moneyed Arab youth would congregate for bouts of Western-inspired drinking and clubbing. In Saudi Arabia, Islamists claimed the agony of the Lebanese was a punishment from God for their sins and the destructive inuence they had on young Muslims. Osama bin Laden, who had immersed himself in radical Muslim texts was strongly inuenced by such arguments, according to Mr.

Bodansky, the terrorism expert. Then, in February, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran, and established the Islamic Republic there. In the world of fundamentalist Muslims, it was seen as a pivotal event the triumph of Islam over the United States and the West. But months after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Osama bin Ladens world and that of many other radical young Muslims was turned upside down by the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. At the time, Afghanistan was ruled by a Soviet-backed communist regime, which was being challenged by Pakistani-sponsored Islamist subversives. Bin Laden was one of the rst Arabs to volunteer to ght the Soviet troops. I was enraged and went there at once, he told an Arab

centres in fty countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and even the United States. The Masadat AlAnsar, the central base for Arab mujahideen or holy warriors, trained thousands of guerrilla warriors, teaching them how to confront the harsh conditions that they would encounter in Afghanistan. Using his fathers business connections, he shipped heavy engineering equipment to Afghanistan for the war effort, and even convinced members of the royal family in Saudi Arabia to support his cause. But in addition to his role as one of the chief organizers and nanciers of the guerrilla warriors in Afghanistan, he spent ten years in the country ghting alongside the mujahideen in key battles, such as the one at Jalalabad. In 1989, after achieving military success against the Soviets in

IN OUR RELIGION, THERE IS A SPECIAL PLACE IN THE HEREAFTER FOR THOSE WHO PARTICIPATE IN THE JIHAD
newspaper, adding that he was inspired by the plight of Muslims in a medieval society besieged by a twentieth-century superpower. In our religion, there is a special place in the hereafter for those who participate in jihad. At rst, bin Laden went to neighbouring Pakistan, where he assisted the Afghan mujahedeen by establishing a recruitment drive that over the next few years would send thousands of Arab ghters from the Gulf States to join the Afghan resistance. He personally nanced their travel costs to Afghanistan and set up the main camps in Pakistan where the new recruits were trained in guerrilla warfare. He recruited Islamists with special knowledge everyone from physicians to engineers to terrorists and drug smugglers. After a decade, he had set up recruitment Afghanistan, he returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero. He settled with his family in a modest apartment in Jeddah and prepared to return to work at the family rm although he still had powerful connections within the Saudi royal family. However, his fortunes changed a year later when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bin Ladens fervent antiAmericanism suddenly became a threat to the Saudis, since they had sided with the United States in the Gulf War. Saudi ofcials threatened to shut down his business operations in the country if he continued his radical proselytizing against the United States. Following the Gulf War, bin Laden found a welcome home in Sudan, which was ruled by the fundamentalist Muslim Hasssan Abdallah al-Turabi. By all accounts, he meant to live a quiet life, taking up

his old profession of construction. But that changed when Sudanese ofcials called upon his expertise to create a global nancial web that could fund extreme terrorist activities around the globe. After ofcials of the Bank of England closed down the Bank of Credit and Commerce International an institution run by Pakistanis and largely nanced by rich Gulf Arabs, and used to launder money that went to terrorist causes bin Laden was called in to establish a new nancial network that paid for the training of holy warriors and terrorism against the U.S. Using his base in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, bin Laden set up a complicated web of bank accounts and other nancial instruments in banking centres such as London, Geneva and Chicago that would provide nancing for the jihad. The accounts were used to lter funds to terrorists working in dozens of countries, including Croatia, Albania, Chechnya, Malaysia, Romania and the United States. By 1993, thanks largely to his nancial skills, bin Laden had worked his way into the inner circle of leadership of the international Islamist movement. He began to cement relationships with some of the U Ss biggest enemies. In 1997, he forged relations with Iraqs Saddam Hussein. The two men set up training camps at which Saudi extremists were trained to collect intelligence on U.S. targets and plan and launch strikes. Other Saudis were organized into a network for smuggling weapons and explosives from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. If bin Laden does take responsibility for yesterdays terrorist attacks, terrorism experts believe the link with Iraq is key. Many have speculated that bin Laden could not have acted alone. But as many have already pointed out, bin Laden is not alone in his jihad. He has the support of thousands of fundamentalists, ready to die in fullling his heavenly decree. Bin Laden does not actually plan the military operations he supports on his own. His closest advisor is a former Egyptian pediatrician named Ayman al-Zawahari, who is said to be equally fanatic, and lives next to bin Laden in eastern Afghanistan. He is not an evil Lone Ranger, writes the military analyst and terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky, but rather a principal player in a tangled and sinister web of terrorism.
National Post

Short list of suspects is short indeed

Attacks required high level of expertise and nancing
B Y J A M E S C O WA N

A U.S. ofcial said yesterday intelligence specialists will investigate a number of organizations considered capable of mounting an attack like the one on New York and Washington. Aside from Osama bin Laden, possible suspects include Palestinian and Arab groups that vehemently oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East. Experts note that several anniversaries relating to the Palestinian struggle occur this month, including the massacre of Palestinian refugees by Israels Lebanese Christians in 1982, the signing of the Oslo Peace accord in 1993, and the start of the current Palestinian uprising one year ago. Yesterdays events could have been meant to commemorate any of these events. Indeed, early yesterday morning, an anonymous caller to an Abu Dhabi television station claimed responsibility for the attacks on behalf of the anti-Israeli group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), but the group has since denied any connection. Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Egypt-based Islamic Jihad have also claimed innocence, although the Jihad went on to state that it was happy to see America suffer the pain and bitterness that our people feel. One organization reportedly on the list of suspects is the Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group accused of bombing the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community centre in Argentina in the early 1990s. (Hezbollah ofcials refused to comment on yesterdays attacks.) Experts also point to nations such Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya as possible suspects. These nations have nanced anti-American terrorist activities in the past, although, yesterday, all but

Iraq condemned the attacks. Libyan leader Muammar Gadda went so far as to offer aid to the United States. In the end, the investigators shortlist is undoubtedly a short one, since the attacks clearly required a high level of expertise and nancing. It is a new kind of terrorism, said Shabtai Shavit, a former head of Israels Mossad intelligence agency. Whoever perpetrated this deserves a lot of credit for being able to plan and execute this kind of complicated terrorist attack without any detail being leaked out. But theres a suggestion that investigators are repeating past errors by focusing on foreign terrorist threats. Jay Coupe, a lead investigator in the 1995 bombings of American embassies in Africa, noted, Many of us were too quick eight years ago to suggest that the Oklahoma City bombings were the work of overseas terrorists. In the end, it was two American militants who were found responsible. Once source cited as supporting this theory is The Turner Diaries, a 1970s book thats a popular text within the United States neo-Nazi movement and one heavily promoted by Timothy McVeigh before the Oklahoma bombings. The book contains a passage eerily reminiscent of yesterdays events. The books narrator describes slamming his plane like a bat out of hell into the side of the Pentagon.
National Post, with les from news services

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Timothy McVeigh was convicted for the Oklahoma City bombing.

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NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

At rst instinct you want to point the nger at Osama bin Laden. But his network hasnt been responsible for suicide bombings, except for the rubber boat attack on the American warship in Yemen A military planner was behind this
T E R R O R I S T A T T A C K S 1 9 8 3 2 0 0 1
Sept. 11, 2001 New York Two commercial ights from Boston are hijacked and crash into New Yorks World Trade Center, destroying both towers. American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 92 people on board, crashes into one of the towers. United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 with 65 people on board, crashes into the other tower. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani estimates that a horrendous number of the 40,000 people who worked there are dead. Washington American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 with 64 people on board, crashes into the west side of the Pentagon, near a helicopter launching pad. Pennsylvania United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with 45 people on board, crashes just north of the Somerset County Airport near Shanksville, Penn. Response All ights in North America are grounded. George W. Bush, the U.S. President, announces the U.S will hunt down and punish the terrorists. Palestinian and Japanese groups initially claim responsibility, but speculation centres on terrorist Osama bin Laden, widely believed to be the only person capable of co-ordinating such an extensive attack. Oct. 12, 2000 Gulf of Aden An explosives-laden rubber raft rams a U.S. destroyer, the U.S.S. Cole, and explodes in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors. Two previously unknown groups, the Islamic Deterrence Forces and Mohammed's Army, claim responsibility for the attack, but suspicion centres on Osama bin Laden. He is indicted by the U.S. for the bombings, but takes refuge in Afghanistan, where he is harboured by the ruling Taleban. Response Yemen arrests 12 suspects in the attack, but most of the terrorists are believed to have ed to Afghanistan. Aug. 7, 1998 Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Truck bombs explode at the U.S. embassies, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injuring thousands. All but 10 of the deaths are in Nairobi, where damage is the worst. A week later, Pakistan deports suspect Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, also known as Abdull Bast Awadh and Mohammad Sadiq Howaida, to Kenya, where he reportedly claims allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Response Bill Clinton, then the U.S. president, launches missiles against Osama bin Ladens base in Afghanistan in retaliation for the attacks. June 21, 1998 Fired from 700 metres away, rocket-propelled grenades explode near the heavily guarded U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The grenades appear to have been red from a crude launcher, suggesting the attack was not made by an organized group. The attack comes two days after Lebanese Prime Minister Rac Hariri visited Washington. No one claims responsibility. June 25, 1996 A Mercedes truck explodes outside a U.S. military complex in Khobar near the Saudi Arabian oil city of Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. soldiers and wounding nearly 400. Response In March, 1997, a 28-year-old Saudi Shiite, Hani al Sayegh, is arrested in Canada and extradited on the condition that he plead guilty for earlier bombings and not face trial for the Khobar attack. He pleads not guilty to all charges, and the attack remains unsolved.
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MIKE NELSON / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist group Jamaa Islamiyya, is serving a life sentence in Springfield, Mo., for his role in terrorist attacks, including the 1993 bombing of New Yorks World Trade Center.

Apossible joint effort involving terrorist networks and states

LIST
Continued from Page D1

SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS

Sept. 11, 2001.

At rst instinct you want to point the nger at Osama bin Laden, said John Thompson, executive director of the MacKenzie Institute, a Canadian think-tank on security issues. Its a very well-planned attack, as all of his normally are. Its extremely damaging in human life, as most of his attacks are intended to be. But his network hasnt been responsible for suicide bombings, except for the rubber boat attack on the American warship in Yemen. I think theres militarygrade planning behind it. This is more sophisticated in terms of the grade of the attack than bin Laden has been up to, Mr. Thompson said. A military planner was behind this. The high-level planning and coordination required to skirt security at several airports, simultaneously hijack four jet liners and pilot three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon raises the possibility foreign military powers were somehow involved. An analysis by the publication Janes Intelligence Review said

the organization behind the attack would have had to have an extreme hatred of the United States and its institutions, a wellorganized network, the expertise to carry out simultaneous hijackings, complete disregard for the consequences of their actions and a willingness to die for the cause. Based on that, Janes specialists have identied as prime suspects the bin Laden network and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine but also Suddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader whose strategy is to defy the West in order to gain clout in the Arab world, which he hopes to lead. Iraq may have also provided nancing and logistical support for the attack, it added. Iraq was certainly not mourning the attack. State television in Baghdad aired footage of the World Trade Center collapsing, accompanied by a patriotic song that began Down with America! Iran is also a major sponsor of Islamic terrorist groups, as is Afghanistan, which harbours bin Laden and his camps. That is not to say that bin Laden was not involved. But if he was, he may have had help. The attack on the United States may have been the result of a co-ordinated effort

between several terrorist networks and states. Indeed, bin Ladens legacy to terrorism has been his success in uniting disparate Islamic groups and governments into a worldwide front for jihad. The term jihad refers to the ght against evil, a duty that can be fullled with the heart, tongue, hand and sword. Modern Islam focuses on the rst three, emphasizing the inner, spiritual jihad. But extremists interpret Islamic law literally to mean they must use violence to make all nations surrender to Muslim rule. Those who die doing so will become martyrs awarded a special place in heaven. The mujahedeen guerrillas who battled the Soviets in Afghanistan saw their ght as a form of jihad. Infuriated by the Soviet occupation of the country, idealistic young Muslims from the world over made their way to the region to ght for the U.S.-backed holy warriors known as the mujahedeen. The war turned into the Soviet version of Vietnam, and when the Red Army nally limped back to Moscow in 1989, the sense of victory was intoxicating and the mujahedeen set out to expand the war against all perceived enemies of Islam. Bin Laden, who had led the muja-

hedeen guerrillas, founded Al Qaeda (the base), to unite radical Islamic forces around the world and continue the jihad on a global scale. He set up headquarters in Sudan and formed businesses in its capital, Khartoum, that served as fronts for paramilitary training camps, while raising money to nance the purchase of arms and explosives. According to U.S. prosecutors, Al Qaeda is not a single organization but a network of such groups as Al Jihad, Vanguards of Conquest that joined forces in 1998 to issue a fatwa under the banner of the International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders that called for the killing of Americans worldwide. Al Qaeda regards the United States as an indel nation because it is not governed by Islamic principles and provides support to other indel governments and institutions, notably Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Nations. Since then, bin Laden has been implicated in scores of anti-American attacks, most recently the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa, the attempted bombing of the Los Angeles airport in 1999 and last years bombing of a U.S. destroyer in Yemen. Al Qaeda operatives have also

fought on behalf of Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Kashmir and Egypt and have been linked to a wave of terrorist bombings that have led Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the FBI, among others, to designate international Islamic extremists as their top security concern. Despite a US$5-million reward on his head, bin Laden has evaded capture by keeping on the move and hiding in caves in the Afghan mountains. Unable to bring bin Laden to justice, the United States and its allies have instead begun systematically dismantling the jihad network through a series of trials in New York, Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt and Paris. Those waging jihad are highly mobile and motivated, and since the only thing they have in common is their devotion to violent jihad, they come from any number of countries, which makes it extremely difcult for intelligence agencies to identify them. This new era of international terrorism is unlike anything the world has seen. Driven by religious zeal, radical Islamic terrorists work in loose cells placed strategically around the world, sustaining themselves with criminal and business enterprise, communicating using cellphones and encrypted e-mail. They may worship bin Laden, believe his assertion that they are ghting a global religious holy war, and they may even be nanced with his family fortune and train at his para-military bases in Afghanistan. But they do not necessarily operate strictly under his command.
See LIST on Page D5

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Jihad refers to the ght against evil, a duty that can be fullled with the heart, tongue, hand and sword. Extremists interpret Islamic law literally to mean they must use violence to make all nations surrender to Muslim rule
T E R R O R I S T A T T A C K S 1 9 8 3 2 0 0 1
Nov. 13, 1995 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia A car bomb explodes outside a U.S.-run military centre, killing seven people, ve of them Americans, and wounding 42. Three groups, including the Islamic Movement for Change, claim responsibility. Response Four Muslim militants are convicted of the bombing, then beheaded in June, 1996. April 19, 1995 A car bomb destroys the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. Response Initial suspicion centres on Arab terrorists, but two American extremists are convicted. Timothy McVeigh is executed, and Terry Nichols is jailed for life. Feb. 26, 1993 Six people are killed and more than 1,000 injured when a bomb in a van explodes under the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Response In 1998, six men, including suspected mastermind Ramzi Yousef, are convicted and sentenced to 240 years in prison. Dec. 21, 1988 A Pan American World Airways Boeing 747 crashes on Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people aboard when a bomb on board explodes. Eleven people in Lockerbie are also killed. Response Abdel-Basset Ali Megrahi is sentenced to life in prison. April 5, 1986 A bomb blast in a West Berlin nightclub kills a U.S. citizen and a German woman and wounds 150 people, 44 of them Americans. The attacks follow U.S.-Libyan hostilities off the Libyan coast the month before. Response The U.S. alleges that Muammar Gadda, the Libyan leader, ordered the bombing, and responded with air strikes against Libya. Three employees of Libyas former embassy in East Germany and two German sisters were charged in the attack. December, 1985 Rome and Vienna An Arab suicide hit squad attacks U.S. and Israeli check-in desks at international airports in Rome and Vienna simultaneously. The attacks claim a total of 20 lives, including four guerrillas. November, 1985 Malta Hijackers of an EgyptAir plane kill an American passenger on board. The hijacking ends in a bloodbath as Egyptian commandos storm the plane in Malta, where 60 people are killed. August, 1985 Frankfurt A car bomb kills two and injures 20 at a U.S. base in Frankfurt. A U.S. soldier murdered for his identity papers is found the day after the blast. June, 1985 Jordan A TWA plane is hijacked in the Mediterranean, the start of a twoweek hostage drama. The last 39 of the passengers taken hostage are released in Damascus, Jordan, after being held at various points in Beirut. In El Salvador, during the same month, a machine gun attack kills 13 people, including four U.S. Marines and two American businessmen, at a pavement caf in the capital San Salvador. October, 1983 Beirut A suicide car bomb attack by radical Muslims on the headquarters of the U.S. military peacekeeping force in Lebanon kills 241 U.S. servicemen. A simultaneous attack on a French base in Beirut kills 58 paratroopers. April, 1983 A suicide car bombing at the U.S. embassy in Beirut kills 63 people, including 17 Americans.
Joseph Brean, National Post

ANTONY NJUGUNA / REUTERS

A bloodied U.S. embassy employee is escorted from the embassy in Nairobi after an explosion on Aug. 7, 1998. Four followers of Osama bin Laden were convicted on May 29 this year in connection with the bombing and one in Tanzania. The two attacks killed 224 people.

He had the bomb in his trunk

LIST
Continued from Page D4

That was the scenario in the Ahmed Ressam bombing conspiracy. Ressam, a refugee claimant in Montreal, travelled to one of bin Ladens camps in Afghanistan and trained for a bombing attack. He returned to Canada in 1999 and built a powerful chemical bomb at a Vancouver motel. He had planned to set off the bomb at Los Angeles airport, but the plot unravelled when he was caught at the U.S. border by a customs inspector who thought his behaviour was suspicious. The bomb was found in the trunk of his car. Although Ressam was part of a Montreal-based jihad cell and the conspiracy had its roots in one of bin Ladens camps, U.S. prosecutors have not conclusively tied the bombing attempt to bin Laden. Instead, they contend that Ressam was taking orders from an agent in Britain. The nature of the attack strongly suggests it may have been related to the jihad. Suicide attacks are not common outside the Middle East and require a rare degree of devotion, such as that displayed by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other religiously inspired groups that believe in martyrdom. Those who die in suicide attacks in the Middle East are praised as martyrs by Islamic groups. These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history. They are the most honourable among us, A Palestinian newspaper reported a day before the U.S. attacks. The choice of the World Trade Center as a target may also provide a clue. The same structure was attacked in February, 1993, by Islamic militants, killing six. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric who many Islamic militants worship as their spiritual leader, is serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his part in the bombing. His imprisonment continues to anger Muslim radicals, who just this week offered to swap him for a group of Western aid workers being held in Afghanistan on charges of preaching Christianity in deance of Kabuls strictly Islamic regime. In addition, the aerial attacks

would have required terrorist with some pilot training, who are not uncommon among the ranks of the Islamic terrorist networks. The timing of the attack at the height of tensions between Israel and Arabs also lends credence to the theory the attack was an act of jihad. Probably bin Laden would have the resources and the support to carry something like this out, said Alistair Hensler, former assistant director of Canadas intelligence service. Hes got the protection of the government in Afghanistan. Hes got the support of a number of governments. I suspect thats probably not a bad bet. But Mr. Hensler said to call the bin Laden network an organization would be misleading. Its a group of fanatics they pull together, and they convince them to do it and they do it. Somebody planned it and would have had to recruit people to do it, and in this case it had to be someone who knew something about planes. He said the U.S. will have to revisit its intelligence strategy in light of the attacks. The Americans spend billions on intelligence. They had this failure. The previous attack on the [World Trade Center] building was a failure. I think even Ressam was a failure. Somebodys going to have to review what theyre doing it. Why arent they getting the intelligence? If it did come out of bin Laden, the question is why arent they covering him better? Eric Margolis, an expert on Islamic militant groups and the author of War at the Top of the World, called the operation the most complex and sophisticated terrorist attacks ever mounted. They are well beyond the operational capability of any Mideast groups yet seen. The co-ordinated attacks must have required at least a month of planning and preparation. His list of suspects includes Mideast groups locked in a bitter, bloody struggle with Israel, which has come to be regarded across the Muslim world as indistinguishable from the U.S.A. He singles out the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Egyptian Al-Jihad, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Japanese Red Army, FARC and

MARTY LEDERHANDLER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Treating victims of the Feb. 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

bin Laden. The Japanese Red Army and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine both reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks, but neither claims were considered credible and blanket denials emerged throughout the day from the Middle East. Hamas denied responsibility and a senior ofcial with the radical Islamic Jihad denounced the killing of civilians although both organizations target civilians in Israel. What happened in the United States today is a consequence of American policies in the hottest region in the world, an Islamic Jihad leader said. Afghanistans ruling Taliban

militia denied that bin Laden had played any role in the attacks. Osama is only a person. He does not have the facilities to carry out such activities, an ofcial said. We want to tell the American people that Afghanistan feels their pain. We hope that the terrorists are caught and brought to justice. The U.S. launched a cruise missile on bin Ladens base in eastern Afghanistan following the 1998 bombings at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, also denounced the attacks as a crime against humanity and offered to help nd those responsible. But Palestinians in Lebanon celebrated the attacks

by ring assault ries and rocketpropelled grenades into the air. Big and small, America is full of pigs, they chanted. Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newsmagazine, said bin Laden warned three weeks ago that his followers would carry out an unprecedented and massive attack on U.S. interests for its support of Israel. Personally we received information that he planned very, very big attacks against American interests. We received several warnings like this. We did not take it so seriously, preferring to see what would happen before reporting it, Mr. Atwan said.
See LIST on Page D6

KHALIL SENOSI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Aug. 7, 1998, Nairobi.

D6

NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

Although todays devastation in Manhattan and Washington has been appalling, the real fear is whether extremist Islamic groups could ever get access to nuclear material and build a rudimentary but nonetheless deadly device

Restraint at home, but ruthless resolve

The U.S. must assert its authority as the worlds surviving superpower
DEROY MURDOCK
i n N e w Yo r k

was sitting on my balcony this the silImorning,aediting, whenjet sudver belly of commercial denly ew right over my apartment building. It was headed toward the southwest over Greenwich Village rather than northeast over the Hudson or East Rivers, the customary aviation route toward La Guardia Airport. My God, I thought. Hes heading for an emergency landing at Newark. I hope he makes it. The situation was serious enough that I checked the alarm clock inside my apartment. It was 8:46 a.m. I heard no explosion and gured the plane was OK. A few minutes later, I saw some puffs of light, grey smoke. They were not the columns of black fumes I would have expected, so I thought little of it. The phone rang about 15 min-

THE BILL OF RIGHTS MUST NOT COLLAPSE WITH THE TOWERS

utes later. Put on the TV, a friend said. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. I clicked on the tube and saw the images that are chilling Americans from coast to coast. I walked two blocks west to University Place, a normally quiet street lled with restaurants, a bowling alley and New York University students. It was lled this morning with spectators who spilled into what little trafc owed on the streets. One woman holding a coffee cup in her right hand covered her mouth with her left and cried. Even as the wounded are healed and the dead are recovered from the rubble at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and near Somerset, Penn., the United States must focus on two words: restraint and ruthlessness. In the face of this calamity, ofcials will be tempted to restrict civil liberties. Indeed, as I write these words, I am stuck on Manhattan Island with several million other Americans. Tunnels and bridges are sealed. Rail and bus service has been suspended. And, of course, our three airports are closed, along with every other domestic aireld. The only planes

aloft here are U.S. ghter jets that have begun to patrol over head. These measures are understandable right now, especially if authorities hope to catch potential suspects in these high crimes. But over the long term, political leaders must exercise extreme caution about overreacting to these staggeringly severe circumstances. Those who have called for government control of Internet encryption technology, monitoring of the movements of cellphone users and similar surveillance techniques will demand these and other steps in the aftermath of these disasters. In the name of ghting terrorism, such steps may be appealing. However, U.S. leaders and voters alike should be very careful about embracing measures today that will leave citizens less free in the long run in an effort to catch criminals in the here and now. The Bill of Rights must not collapse with the Twin Towers. But U.S. ofcials should feel no such restraint about retaliating against whatever group or nation perpetrated these acts of war. Any country that gave aid and comfort to whoever did these things should be treated as if its president were at the controls of one of the ying bombs that so tragically found its target. Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended, U.S. President George Bush declared this afternoon. While the President spoke with rmness, he underestimated these villains. Cowards quake beneath their beds. These explosions are the work of audacious, disciplined, motivated killers. These people are not cowardly. They are evil. They and any states that sponsored them should be identied and crushed, mercilessly and soon. The United States is world renowned as the land of Britney Spears, reality TV, snowboards and boundless plenty. For that and more, we are loved by most. But at times like these, we also must be respected and even feared. Let no one forget that in addition to being home to a fat, happy and well-entertained people, the United States remains Earths surviving superpower. We possess the power to assert ourselves and our interests by any means necessary, conventional or atomic. It is incumbent on Americas civilian and military leaders to locate the guilty parties and teach them this lesson good and hard with all the gentility of the Israeli army in a rotten mood. A battle cry is in order: Find them and atten them. New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service
Scripps Howard News Service

HASAN JAMALI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A Yemeni police boat patrols around the U.S.S. Cole. Osama bin Ladens group claimed responsibility for bombing the ship.

Boston authorities searching for cell

LIST
Continued from Page D5

CRAIG HOWARD / NEWARK STAR-LEDGER

Spectators in Hoboken, N.J., watch the World Trade Center burn.

Mr. Atwan has interviewed bin Laden and maintains close contacts with his followers. In June, the Arabic satellite television channel MBC said its correspondent spent at least two hours with bin Laden and a large group of his followers, during which his aides spoke of a severe blow against American interests. There are indications that people with links to bin Laden and the al Qaeda organization may have been responsible, but it is still too premature and that has not been determined, a U.S. ofcial said. Authorities in Boston, where two of the hijacked planes originated, were said to be searching for the terrorist cell behind the attack. James Hussey, Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief said that while it was too soon to determine who carried out the hijackings and deliberate crashing of at least four commercial airliners, the recent presence in Boston of two men with links to the bin Laden network would lead many investigators to suspect that organization was in-

volved. But Hussey stressed that authorities had no other clues that would implicate the bin Laden organization. The top suspect, inevitably, must be Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who is currently harboured by the Taleban regime in Afghanistan, Janes reported. Given bin Ladens alleged involvement in previous terrorist outrages, and the fact that his al Qaeda organization is believed to have a wide international base in various Islamic communities throughout the world, it is clear to see why the U.S. and its allies will regard bin Laden as the evil genius behind what must be the worlds worst atrocity in modern history. CSIS warned in a report released this summer that one of the prime motivators of contemporary terrorism is Islamic religious extremism, at the forefront of which are Sunni extremists. The magnitude of the Sunni extremist threat was exemplied by the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, intended to cause upwards of 35,000 casualties. The agency has been investigating several Islamic terrorist networks operating in Canada. Two Egyptians who CSIS accuses of

being members of Islamic terrorist groups, Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohamed Mahjoub, are currently under arrest in Toronto and facing deportation. Several other Canadian-based Islamic radicals were also rounded up during the Ressam investigation and are currently imprisoned in the U.S. and Europe. As speculation mounted that the attacks were tied to Islamic radicals, a leading U.S. Islamic group warned Muslims to take precautions against harassment or abuse. The group urged American Muslims to assist in rescue and recovery operations, donate blood and send contributions to relief agencies but also said they should take measures against possible vigilante retaliation. In a statement, the group said it had already received isolated reports of harassment and recommended that Muslims who wear tradition Islamic clothing consider staying out of public areas for the immediate future. In addition, it said the Muslim-American community should request additional police patrols in the vicinity of mosques and post mosque members as sentries at entrances and parking areas during prayer services. The question is not just who would do such a thing, but why? There may be no good answer. But if Islamic militants are responsible, it could stem from anger over the detention of Sheik al-Rahman, U.S. support for Israel or it could be retaliation for

the recent convictions of a band of jihad radicals, including Ressam and four other bin Laden followers awaiting sentencing for conspiring with the Saudi dissident to kill Americans. The World Trade Center bombing of 1993 was a relatively simple operation. Militants simply drove a truck lled with explosives into the parking lot beneath the building and walked away. By contrast, yesterdays attack was remarkably complex, demonstrating a degree of sophistication and planning never seen before in the world of international terrorism. Our concern must be that these attacks are only the start of a far-reaching campaign against the U.S. and its main allies, including Britain and Saudi Arabia, Janes reported. Although todays devastation in Manhattan and Washington has been appalling, the real fear is whether extremist Islamic groups could ever get access to nuclear material and build a rudimentary but nonetheless deadly device. Afghanistan borders the former Soviet Union, the successor states of which have undoubtedly the worlds least secure stockpiles of weapons grade nuclear material. Until today, the horrors that have struck the U.S. might also have been considered the stuff of ction. Now it must be seen as a potential reality.
National Post

NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

D7

The faceless enemy that struck yesterday at the sinews of our society with such cunning precision has threatened the foundations of everything we have accomplished in the past 200 years

ALI HASHISHO / REUTERS

As children dance around him, a Palestinian guerrilla fires from his rifle at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near the port city of Sidon in southern Lebanon, to celebrate yesterdays terrorist attacks against U.S. targets.

Dont be afraid to call it war

These bombings must mark a turning point in U.S. policy
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
his is not crime. This is war. One of the reasons there are terrorists out there capable and audacious enough to carry out the deadliest attack on the United States in its history is that, while they have declared war on the America, America has responded (with the exception of a few useless cruise missile attacks on empty tents in the desert) by issuing subpoenas. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powells rst reaction to the day of infamy was to pledge to bring those responsible to justice. This is exactly wrong. Franklin Roosevelt responded to Pearl Harbor by pledging to bring Japan to its knees. He did not pledge to bring the commander of Japanese naval aviation to trial. The U.S. folly was Lockerbie. The West spent a decade bringing two peons to stand trial for the murder of hundreds of Americans on Pan Am ight 103. It was abby, legalistic and absurd. It set a terrible example, and issued an invitation to terrorists to carry their war to the United States. You bring criminals to justice; you rain destruction on combattants. This is a fundamental distinction that can no longer be avoided. The bombings of Sept. 11, 2001, must mark a turning point. War was long ago declared on the United States. Until the United States declares war in return, America shall have thousands of more innocent victims. We no longer have to search for a name for the post-Cold War era. It will henceforth be known as the age of terrorism. Organized terror has shown what it can do: execute the single greatest massacre in American history, shut down the greatest power on the globe, and send its leaders into underground shelters. All this, without even resorting to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction. This is a formidable enemy. To dismiss it as a bunch of cowards perpetrating senseless acts of violence is complacent nonsense. People willing to kill thousands of innocents while they kill themselves are not cowards. They are deadly, vicious warriors and need to be treated as such. Nor are their acts of violence senseless. They have a very specic aim: To avenge alleged historical wrongs and to bring the great American satan to its knees. Nor is the enemy faceless or mysterious. We do not know for sure who gave the nal order, but we know what movement it comes from. The enemy has identied itself in public and openly. Our delicate sensibilities have prevented us from pronouncing its name. Its name is radical Islam. Not Islam as practised peacefully by millions of the faithful around the world. But a specic fringe political movement, dedicated to imposing its fanatical ideology on its own societies and destroying the society of its enemies, the greatest of which is the United States. Israel, too, is an affront to radical Islam, and thus of course must be eradicated. But it is the smallest of sh. For this fringe group, the heart of the beast with its military in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey and the Persian Gulf; with a culture that corrupts Islamic youth; with an economy and technology that dominates the world is the United States. That is why it was struck so savagely. How do we know? Who else trains cadres of fanatical suicide murderers who go to their deaths smiling, as did the suicide bomber in Beirut who drove his truck into the Marine barracks, killing 240 Americans in 1982? Why do they smile? Because they are dying not out

THE ENEMY HAS IDENTIFIED ITSELF IN PUBLIC AND OPENLY. ITS NAME IS RADICAL ISLAM
of desperation but out of conviction. They have been taught to believe that murder/martyrdom gives them immunity from pain and gives them immediate entry to heaven, where 71 black-eyed virgins await their pleasure. Of course, this sounds grotesque. But we must not avert our eyes from facts. And the fact is that the average terrorist does not co-ordinate four hijackings within one hour. Nor y a plane into the tiny silhouette of a single building. For that, you need skilled pilots seeking martyrdom. There is not a large pool to draw from. These are the shock troops of

the enemy. And the enemy has many branches. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Israel, the Osama bin Laden organization headquartered in Afghanistan, and various Arab liberation fronts based in Damascus. (One of these latter groups, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, immediately claimed responsibility for the atrocity.) And then there are the governments: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya among them. Which one was responsible for our Pearl Harbor? We will nd out soon enough. But when we do, there should be no talk of bringing these people to swift justice, as Karen Hughes dismayingly promised mid-afternoon yesterday in the rst ofcial word to come out of the White House. An open act of war demands a military response, not a judicial one. But a military response against whom? It is absurd to make war on the individuals who send these people. But the terrorists cannot exist in a vacuum. They need a territorial base of sovereign protection. For 30 years, we have avoided this truth. If bin Laden was behind this, then Afghanistan is our enemy. Any country that harbours and protects him is our enemy. We must carry their war to them. We should seriously consider a Congressional declaration of war. That convention seems quaint, unused since the Second World War. But there are two virtues to declaring war: (1) It announces our seriousnesses both to our people and to the enemy, and (2) It gives us certain rights as belligerents (of blockade, for example) that we would not otherwise have. The long peace is over. We sought this war no more than we sought war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan or Cold War with the Soviet Union. But when pressed upon the greatest generation, it rose to the challenge. The question is: Will we?
The Washington Post Writers Group

ANALYSIS

An attack against us all

B Y S E A N M . M A L O N E Y, M I C H A E L A . H E N N E S S Y, AND SCOT ROBERTSON

An Attack Against One is an Attack Against All. Thus reads Article 5 of The North Atlantic Treaty, which has tied Canada, the United States, and our European allies together in an alliance for peace since 1949. Yesterdays attacks in New York and Washington are an attack against us all. We must not forget that the United States is Canadas closest ally and trading partner, that our relationship is a close one. We stood shoulder to shoulder with them against Fascist and Communist totalitarianism during the Second and Cold Wars. We assisted the Americans in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Andrew, and they helped the citizens of Ontario and Quebec get back on their feet after the ice storm of 1998. Despite our differences, we have common interests, a common language, common heritage and a common culture as emblazoned on the Peace Arch: We are children of a common mother. Americas friends must stand up and do what it takes to bring to justice, even summary and preemptive justice, to those implicated in this attack. The enemy we face together is anti-modern medieval religious fanaticism. The faceless enemy that struck yesterday at the sinews of our society with such cunning precision has threatened the foundations of everything we have accomplished in the past 200 years: the free movements of goods, peoples, ideas and condence. One has to ask: What is to be gained by such an attack? Nihilism? Martyrdom? But what

god would welcome such martyrs? What is lost by such an attack? Our enemy has struck at the nerve centre of international trade, the foundations of our continuing prosperity, the trust in our international communications and travel and our willingness to openly embrace diverse cultures. In the space of less than two hours, the casualty level has exceeded geometrically that of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and may exceed total U.S. losses in the long, drawn-out war in Vietnam. Too many analysts of international affairs and those within the soft-line intelligentsia scoff at the scenarios postulated in the ction of Dale Brown and Tom Clancy or by the intelligence community, casually dismissing such things as pulp ction for those armchair warriors with too much testosterone on board. Tragically, those of us who analyze homeland defence issues have warned about the possibility of such actions and have advocated increased vigilance, were today proven correct. Those who think Canada is somehow removed from these tragic events should reexamine the realities of the situation. We had better pray the perpetrators did not stage through our country on their way to murder our U.S. friends and brothers. Today, the border is closed and may never be re-opened with the ease of access we took for granted for so many years. We cannot remain a porous conduit for those seeking to violently dismantle our civilization. The authors teach in the War Studies Program at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont.
National Post

The 70,000 people of Hudsons Bay Company are overcome with grief at the tragic events that occurred in the United States on September 11. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and we extend our deepest sympathies.