Metastases: The Malignant Mutation of Al Qaeda
  By Patrick Sabatier
  La Liberation

  Monday 19 May 2003

  The attacks in Casablanca following those in Riyadh demonstrate the degree to which George W. Bush was wrong to proclaim that the US victory in Iraq was a turning point in the war against terrorism . The war declared by Islamo-terrorists on the West and the Apostate regimes that are its allies is not about to end.

  It hardly matters whether Bin Laden orchestrated this new wave of terror, he is clearly its inspiration. His terrorist nebula has been dealt some severe blows- from the loss of Afghan bases to the death or arrest of thousands of its militants and sympathizers, including some of its leaders. But his network of networks has metastasized into a movement ever more decentralized, transnational and clandestine.

  By hitting the soft targets of foreign residents, tourists, and transport, Islamo-terrorism aims to break off the links, economic and human, between the West and Islamic countries and to eradicate from the latter the Western model of society, its values of freedom, political democracy, equality of the sexes, and tolerance, let alone secularism. Morocco is one of the rare examples in the Arab Islamic world.

  In the face of this threat, the war in Iraq will only have been an ineffectual diversion. It has undoubtedly exacerbated the resentments, which, added to poverty and corruption, transform young Muslims into fanaticized puppets in the hands of totalitarian ideologues.

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  Morocco: One Year of Islamist Attacks
  La Liberation

  Monday 19 May 2003

  17 March 2002, Islamabad (Pakistan)
Grenade attack in a Protestant church in the diplomatic quarter. 5 dead of which 2 Americans, 46 wounded of which 33 foreigners.

  11 April Djerba (Tunisia)
A truck bomb explodes against the El Ghriba synagogue. 14 German tourists, 5 Tunisians and 1 French national killed.

  8 May, Karachi (Pakistan)
A suicide bomber exploded his vehicle near a bus carrying the French employees of the Naval Works Management. 11 French nationals and 3 Pakistanis killed.

  14 June, Karachi (Pakistan)
Booby-trapped car in front of the United States consulate. 11 Pakistanis killed, 45 wounded.

  6 October, Aden (Yemen)
Explosion on a French oil tanker, the Limbourg, along the coast. One member of the crew killed.

  8 October, Faikala (Kuwait)
An American sailor is killed and another wounded by two Kuwaitis during maneuvers.

  12 October, Bali (Indonesia)
Bombs in the discoth ques of a tourist district. 202 killed, the great majority Australians. Jamaah Islamya claimed responsibility for the attack.

  28 October, Amman (Jordan)
An American diplomat is assassinated in front of his home.

  28 November, Mombassa (Kenya)
15 killed in an attack with a booby-trapped car against a hotel frequented by Israeli tourists. Two missiles barely miss an Israeli airplane.

  30 December, Jibla (Yemen)
3 American missionaries were killed and a fourth suffered grievous bullet wounds from an Islamist extremist in a hospital.

  4 March 2003, Davao (Philippines)
21 dead of which one American during a bomb attack perpetrated at the airport.

  12 May, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)
Suicide bombers explode vehicles crammed with explosives in residential compounds sheltering expatriates. 34 dead, of which 8 Americans.

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