In the Shadow of Bin Laden

Published on Friday, January 20, 2006 by the Guardian/UK

Editorial

With the timing and panache of a diabolical Scarlet Pimpernel, Osama bin Laden reminded the world yesterday that he is still out there and that he continues to shape the global political agenda as few others. Of course, there are searching questions to ask about the authenticity and timing of the al-Qaida leader's latest tape before the rest of the world can make a balanced judgment about Bin Laden's message. But there is no disputing that this was another audacious media and political coup of a high order. The most wanted man in the world has proved again that he has an unrivalled ability to cock a snook at the American-led global manhunt against him. Like it or not, yesterday's tape will burnish his legend with his admirers and enemies alike. There seem, at first sight, to be four noteworthy aspects to his latest act of electronic defiance. The first is simply the reminder that Bin Laden is still in the game. It is nearly 14 months since his last taped message. The whole of 2005 passed without a public word from him. There had been speculation that this silence implied he was either dead, seriously ill or cornered. Now, at the start of a new year, that suddenly looks like yet another example of the familiar over-optimism that has characterised much of the US-led war on terror since 9/11. The second is the striking timing of a taped message. It is less than a week since the American airstrikes on the Pakistani village of Damadola, aimed at killing Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. This may be pure good luck for al-Qaida - the logistical difficulties of getting such a tape into the hands of the broadcaster al-Jazeera without detection make it unlikely that the tape was made in the past week - but the timing enables Bin Laden to thumb his nose at his pursuers yet again. But it is not just the fact of the message that matters. It is also its content. The two things that stand out here are the al-Qaida carrot and stick. The carrot is a so-called truce offer, in which the United States and its allies apparently withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan in return for some kind of al-Qaida ceasefire in the west. This will not be to be treated as a genuine truce offer, for it would provide al-Qaida with the time, space and place to resume planning a renewed terror campaign. There is, though, a political claim in this message that cannot be completely disregarded, designed to play into a naïve belief in some parts of the west that negotiations with Bin Laden may offer a way out of the terror and security-dominated world in which we now live. The final point follows from this. At the heart of Bin Laden's message is the threat to unleash further terror attacks on American citizens in their homeland. Far from provoking a movement to appease the terrorists, this will surely do the reverse. It will play directly into the hands of those who insist that security must overwhelm all other considerations. It should not. Specifically, after yesterday's leak from the Foreign Office, it should not undermine the continuing anxiety about possible British involvement in the transport of terror suspects to third countries where they risk torture. The Foreign Office memorandum revealed no doubt in official minds of the illegality of ignoring due process in the transport of terrorist suspects to countries where they might be tortured - hence the importance of Condoleezza Rice's assurances that the US will not act in breach of its own constitutional disavowal of torture, a much narrower definition than the obligations imposed by the UN convention against torture or the European convention on human rights. It may mean what is legal there would not be here. Ms Rice says Europe is helping it take terrorists out of circulation. The government insists it has no evidence of rendition flights. It might prefer not to resolve this contradiction. Bin Laden's intervention should not let it off the hook. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006