Shouts from the desert

I have long stated that Osama bin Laden's plan when attacking the World Trade Centre was to provoke a disproportionate response in which the United States would take the battle to the Middle East. I drew these conclusions based solely on analysis of the nature of the attack, an assumption that bin Laden is a reasonably intelligent man, and knowledge of the general course of Government policy over the years - there was plenty of evidence available to anybody who wanted to conduct a serious analysis rather than merely taking the knee-jerk reaction.

But now we have a dramatic confirmation.

An article published this week by a journalist - Abdel Bari Atwan - who had interviewed bin Laden a decade ago reveals that:

Bin Laden also explained his long-term anti-American strategy. He told me he knew he would never be able to defeat America on its own soil using conventional weapons. He had another plan, one that would take years to reach fruition.

"We want to bring the Americans to fight us on Muslim land," he said as we walked through the woods in the high mountains at Tora Bora. "If we can fight them on our own territory we will beat them, because the battle will be on our terms in a land they neither know nor understand."

The article is also interesting in that it reveals that the World Trade Centre attacks splintered al-Qaeda for a time. Properly handled, a targeted and response would likely have destroyed the organisation and completely discredited its teachings even among its most loyal adherents. As it is, the organisation is now much stronger than ever, and, the article argues, even more extreme.

There is no new conclusion for me here - I have already stated that the response of the Coalition of the Willing was not only illegal, but stupid, counter-productive and demonstrated a lack of basic knowledge of politico-military strategy - this new information merely gives stark reinforcement of the conclusions I had already drawn.