Thousands of Al Qaida insurgents are training in reopened
camps in eastern Afghanistan, a UN report said.
The UN report, authored by a team of experts led by Britain's Michael
Chandler, said that the camps are located in Kunar province near the eastern
town of Asadabad and in Peshawar, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The
camps are "small,
discreet and mobile" to evade U.S.-led coalition forces searches in the
region, Middle East Newsline reported.
"Particularly disturbing about this trend is the fact that new
volunteers are making their way to these camps, swelling the numbers of
would-be al-Qaida activists and the longer-term capabilities of the
network," the report said.
Chandler said Al Qaida recruits "disillusioned" youth either to be
trained as "foot soldiers" or for other specialized tasks but he did not
specify for which operations.
Thousands of Al Qaida insurgents are scattered throughout approxiately
40 countries, Chandler said. "There is a tremendous amount of sympathy in
some countries for the movement. The figure of 10,000 is tossed around," he
said.
In Islamabad, Pakistani intelligence officials have said that suicide
bombers are being trained by Al Qaida in Pakistan to attack targets in
Afghanistan. The Pakistani government denies the allegations.
The report also said that Al Qaida has changed attack targets. It cites
the recent attacks in Bali and in Mombasa attributed to Al Qaida in which
208 people were killed. "Soft targets, preferably with maximum casualties,
would now appear to be the order of the day," the report said.
In Britain, Al Qaida members operate in "classic" small cell structures,
a senior official said.
"An attack is not inevitable, but the probability is that sooner or
later one of these groups, who are extremely determined, will get through.
We can protect many obvious high-value targets but then, as we have seen in
Bali, they can go for the very soft target."
In Paris, French police have arrested four suspected insurgents for
planning a chemical attack in a suburb of the city.
