T A B L E+T A L K How much time do you spend following the stock market? Enough to interfere with your life? Join the stock market discussion in Money. D A I L Y+Q U O T E The joys of a debt collector R E C E N T L Y HotFired By Andrew Leonard Money wasn't the only reason for the latest layoffs at Wired (11/20/97) Shape of things to come By Jonathan Broder Unless the Clinton administration does something to rescue the Middle East peace process, there will be more Saddam Husseins -- and more Luxor massacres (11/19/97) Bloodbath on the Nile By Andrew Ross Why Islamic radicals are murdering foreign tourists (11/18/97) That's Ms. hippie chick to you By Susan Kuchinskas While radical politics tore up the streets, sexual politics were heating up the kitchen (11/17/97) How mad is Ted Kaczynski? By Ros Davidson The Unabomber is not like most other serial killers. But the demons that drove him were every bit as lethal (11/14/97) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		Lone gunmen, page 2 of 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - At the same time-anti-government, and anti-American, mullahs are raising the decibel level in the mosques, much like the movement that toppled the Shah of Iran almost 20 years ago. It was out of this maelstrom, rather than an organized terrorist cell, that last week's deadly attack on four American oil company workers in Karachi most likely came. The murders were claimed by something calling itself the Aimal Secret Committee, in honor of the defendant in Virginia. But intelligence sources know of no such organized group and believe it was almost certainly the work of an ad-hoc gang of Muslim hotheads cashing in on Kansi's conviction. As a result of the murders, the Virginia jury was sequestered under armed guard, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pointedly pressed the Pakistani government to capture the killers -- without any evident success so far -- and the State Department has issued a traveler's advisory warning American tourists, business people and soldiers to beware of "random acts of anti-American violence, such as drive-by shootings, kidnappings or bombings." The phrase "random acts" is accurate. Organized international terrorism has been in steep decline over the past decade. Last year there were 296 terrorist attacks, down from 665 in 1987, according to Larry Johnson, a former State Department terrorism specialist. The number of terrorist groups operating now is about half of that in the mid-1980s, down to 40 or so. Four groups are responsible for 90 percent of the casualties -- Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, Hamas, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Egyptian fundamentalists, who murdered more than 60 foreign tourists and Egyptians last Monday. "The threat of terrorism is so amorphous and so difficult to pin down that it's easy to exaggerate it," says Johnson. There is a terrorist threat to America, Johnson says. It's just not coming from terrorist groups so much as freelance gunmen like Kansi, or ad hoc groups like the one Ramzi Yousef patched together to bomb the World Trade Center in Manhattan. Kansi grew up in Quetta, the southern base for the CIA's war in Afghanistan, and may even have been recruited by the CIA at some point, according to retired Gen. Hamid Gul, Pakistan's former spy chief, whom I interviewed in Rawalpindi last summer. Kansi has said he was motivated by America's enmity toward Islam, but Gul suggested Kansi might have had a personal motive in attacking CIA employees. The CIA flatly denied any association with Kansi. While the CIA, FBI and Pentagon have recently turned their attention -- and millions of dollars -- to the threat of state-sponsored nuclear, chemical and biological terrorism, Johnson considers lone actors like Kansi a more lethal threat to American security. "To an extent that it's an act of personal vengeance," Johnson said of Kansi's assault, "it's even more dangerous. It de-links politics and violence, and there's no telling what they'll do, and no limits on what they'll do." Johnson compares Kansi to American anarchists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- little men who made big statements with guns and bombs. "Politics imposes restraints, because the ultimate goal is to be in control," Johnson said. "Kansi didn't care about that ... It's sort of an old form of anarchism." And nearly impossible to deter or prevent. Current thinking in counter-terrorism circles is that rewards are the most effective tools to catch fugitives -- after the fact. More than $3 million was paid out to snitches and Pakistani officials to get Kansi, according to reports. Saddam Hussein or Iran's theocrats, on the other hand, are loathe to sponsor terrorist attacks on U.S. soil that can be traced to them, according to most terrorism specialists. As one former CIA man put it to me, "They've got addresses in Baghdad and Tehran where we can hit back." Not so the wandering man with a grudge. The teeming slums of Pakistan, like the refugee camps of Gaza or the tenements of Cairo, are breeding grounds for future Aimal Kansis. Just after dawn last August I was driving out of Lahore, capital of the old Punjab. Outside my window scores of families in rags were awakening in the dust and dirt of the city's parks to another bleak day of hustling for food and water. I turned to Ahmad and asked whether militant Islam held much of an attraction for these homeless, hungry people. "When the mullahs give their speeches," Ahmad said, "they show up and listen. They nod their heads and sometimes yell, 'Death to America!' with everybody else. But most of them just go home afterward." Then his brown eyes fixed on me, seriously. "But Aimal Kansi, you know, he didn't just go home. And there are many more like him these days. Many more." SALON | Nov. 21, 1997 Jeff Stein writes for Salon on national security and intelligence issues. His investigation of the Kansi case appears in the December issue of GQ magazine.