Traces of al-Qaeda’s presence can now be found in Afghanistan, UN experts say.
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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UN Finds a Link between al-Qaeda and the Taliban
UN experts on terrorism have presented a report on the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan to the UN Security Council. The analysts point to growing cooperation between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. They forecast, however, that the influence of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups will soon start to decline.
The report on Iraq and neighboring countries says that al-Qaeda plays the key role in inciting violence in Iraq. Besides that, the war in Iraq gave the militants a chance to set there a number of training camps and recruit new terrorists.
Experts have come to a conclusion that the link between al-Qaeda and the Taliban movement have been lately strengthened. Traces of al-Qaeda’s presence can now be found in Afghanistan. Militants of the Taliban who have never fought outside Afghanistan and Pakistan’s bordering regions are now being trained at camps in Iraq and Somali, the report reads. Statistics show that in 2001-2004, Afghanistan saw the average of 10 suicide attacks every year, while 56 suicide bombers attacks have been already recorded over the last seven months alone.
However, experts predict that the war in Iraq will soon become a clear defeat for al-Qaeda, and the terrorists’ authority will be start to decline. Foreign recruiters who are fighting in Iraq are getting increasingly uncomfortable that they have to kill members of their own religion.
It is also of note that al-Qaeda’s leader is not popular at all among people in Iraq. 90 percent of the Iraqis (77 percent of them are Sunnis) do not support Osama bin Laden, according to an opinion poll which was released this week. At the same time, Iraq’s people do not like the Americans who are supposed to protect them from terrorists. Opinion polls show that 80 percent of the Iraqis are sure that the U.S. military presence in the country provokes further violence. What is more, 61 percent of the people approve of terrorist attacks on the American forces, up from 47 percent at the beginning of the year.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 29, 2006
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