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 6
July 2006
 The
flurry of messages from Osama Bin Laden and his deputy
this year suggests the pair is regaining control over Al
Qaeda operations for the first time since the U.S. toppled
the Taliban, two top experts told the Daily News.
"It means their command
and control over Al Qaeda is probably stronger than we
thought it was," said Michael Scheuer, who ran the CIA's
Osama Bin Laden unit and is the author of "Imperial
Hubris."
Bin Laden has issued
five audiotapes since he ended a 14-month silence in
January. His deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has released eight
audio- or video-taped anti-Western speeches this year.
Few believe anymore
that Al Qaeda tapes signal terror cells to strike, or
otherwise foreshadow an impending attack.
But the messages do
suggest Al Qaeda leaders are probably able to communicate
as easily with henchmen plotting attacks as they are with
operatives putting the tapes on the Internet, according to
Scheuer and Peter Bergen, two of the foremost American
experts on Bin Laden.
"It shows they're
extremely unconcerned about releasing them" as a risk to
their own security, said Bergen, author of "The Osama Bin
Laden I Know" and one of the first Western journalists to
interview the Al Qaeda founder in 1997.
"The heat is not on,"
Bergen said.
Al Qaeda's media wing,
As Sahab ("The Cloud"), has posted recent tapes directly
on Web sites instead of sending them to Arab TV channels
to selectively edit. Plus, Bergen said, "It's hard for the
CIA to watch every Internet cafe in Pakistan."
And Taliban commanders
in Afghanistan have said they receive direct orders from
Bin Laden and Zawahiri, who are believed to be hiding in
the northern Afghan-Pakistan border area.
The Bush administration
does not agree with that assessment. Two senior U.S.
intelligence officials told The News they doubt Bin Laden
and Zawahiri can oversee operations.
"It's obvious that [Bin
Laden] exercises influence over Al Qaeda everywhere," one
official said, but he doubted it included operational
control.
Ambassador Henry
Crumpton, the State Department's counter.terrorism
adviser, told a Senate committee on June 13 that the two
Al Qaeda leaders no longer have "effective global command
and control." Crumpton added that the leaders "are
frustrated by their lack of direct control" over Al Qaeda
and its affiliate in Iraq.
Echoing Crumpton's statement that Bin Laden
and Zawahiri are "on the run," another administration
counterterrorism chief, Scott Redd, told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee that the "plethora [of tapes]
reflects Al Qaeda efforts to motivate other like-minded
violent extremists."
Redd, director of the National
Counterterrorism Center, said that if Bin Laden was "taken
out, [it] probably would not have a major effect on
operations."
But Scheuer said all of the tapes this year
make Al Qaeda "seem like a more confident organization."
"I'd be worried about claims that these
guys are on the run and can't communicate," Scheuer said.
"Clearly that's not the case."
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