Deadly wave of hatred washing across the globe

By Paul McGeough
November 11, 2005
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The bombers succeed dramatically in Jordan. A master bomb-maker dies in Java, and in China there is anxiety that the terrorists are about to strike - or maybe not.

The first weeks of the fifth year in the War on Terror were quiet enough. Now we all seem to have hit our straps - especially in Australia, where suspected terrorists, police and politicians could not have choreographed a more perfect news storm - all tension and drama, no body count . . . just a chilling spectre of what might have been.

Unless the terrorists use a headline-grabbing tactic, strike in a new country or achieve a high toll as the brutality in Amman - 57 dead and up to 300 injured at last count - their activities tend to be reported as regional or local news. However, all are part of a greater global conflict. It began in September 2001, cold-blooded attacks on New York and Washington, but how it plays out might well be dictated by the political fortunes of George Bush and Tony Blair.

For the past 72 hours we have been consumed by terrorism-related dramas, domestic, foreign and political.

But at the risk of pouring water on troubled oil, perhaps we all should turn our minds to London and Washington. Coupled with the British Prime Minister's humiliating failure to push his anti-terrorism laws through Parliament on Wednesday, plummeting polls and a cold electoral blast for the US President might represent the pendulum's extremity in the wake of September 11.

It is early days, but how Bush and Blair fare in Year 5 may well define the outcome of the "war on terror", a conflict virtually impossible to win; but once started, so easy to lose.

In Australia we become so consumed by local developments that at times the global picture becomes too remote. But while Canberra's willingness to sign on for the invasion of Iraq helped make the Coalition of the Willing possible, it is the electoral fate of Bush and Blair that will guide the outcome of the wider conflict.

To that end, the convulsive events of this week will be seen through the political prism of respective voters.

The death of Jemaah Islamiah's master bomb-maker, Azahari Husin - who was responsible for the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings and the attacks on the Marriott Hotel (2003) and the Australian embassy (2004) in Jakarta - will be welcomed by some. However, others will fret about how long it took police to track him down.

The former University of Adelaide student, who was known in his native Malaysia as the Demolition Man, orchestrated a campaign of violence while on the run for more than three years. It is a sober reminder of the others still at large - principally Osama bin Laden, and his pointman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Which is a neat segue to the Amman bombings. Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attacks on three Western-owned hotels in the Jordanian capital on Wednesday evening. Jordanian authorities have foiled several earlier terrorist plots that might have had devastating outcomes, including what became known as Zarqawi's Millennium Plot in 1999 and an attempted chemical strike last year which officials believe could have killed up to 20,000 people.

But arguably the terrorists were always going to succeed in what some often refer to as "poor little Jordan".

Ever since September 11, well-placed Jordanians have warned that the failure of King Abdullah to address social and economic disquiet in the south of the country has created fertile recruiting territory for followers of al-Qaeda. Wednesday's strikes suggest they have arrived in Zarqawi's homeland.

There was confusion in the reports from Beijing. First attributed to the US embassy, they said that Chinese police had warned that Islamic militants were planning to attack luxury hotels in the capital in the coming weeks.

Yesterday Chinese officials cast doubt on the report, saying it was a foreign beat-up. It is a measure of the conduct of some world leaders since September 11 that we cannot we cannot be sure who to believe - Washington or Beijing.

Which closes the circle on the response of Western leaders to terrorism - talking tough is one thing, but credibility in the eyes of voters is just as important.

Blair could not convince his own party of the need to extend to 90 days the period a suspected terrorist could be detained without charge, so he suffered the first parliamentary defeat in the eight-year life of his government.

Bush's botched invasion of Iraq and the "war on terror" have delivered to him his worst poll ratings, and this week the Democrats won two state governors elections. This, pundits say, threatens the Republicans' congressional majorities in next-year's midterm elections.

And in the shadow of Washington and London, there are consequences in Canberra. It was hardly surprising that amid all the self-congratulation in the wake of the Melbourne and Sydney arrests this week, the Prime Minister, John Howard, and his supporters were obliged to deny that the anti-terrorism exercise was a political stunt.

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