Iraq war increases terrorism risk

War in Iraq has increased the risk of terrorism against the West, at least for the short term, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said yesterday in its annual report on the world's militaries.

The IISS has added a section on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to The Military Balance, its authoritative yearly defence handbook, which lists the size and capabilities of the world's armed forces.

"Overall, the risk of terrorism to Westerners and Western assets in Arab countries appeared to increase after the Iraq war began in March 2003," it concluded.

"With the military invasion and occupation of Iraq, the United States demonstrated its desire to change the political status quo in the Arab world to advance American strategic and political interests," it said.

"Accordingly, the Iraq invasion was always likely in the short term to enhance Jihadist recruitment and intensify al Qaeda's motivation to encourage and assist terrorist operations."

It said about half of al Qaeda's 30 top leaders had been killed or captured since the September 11, 2001 attacks, but about 20,000 militants who trained in camps in Afghanistan remain at large with varying levels of capability and motivation.

The war in Afghanistan, which followed the September 11 attacks on the US, had reduced al Qaeda's capabilities but also made the organisation tougher to track down, by driving its leaders into the mountains along the Pakistani border.

Western countries with strong governments have so far mostly done a good job of preventing al Qaeda attacks, it said, noting that this year's train bombing in Madrid was the only major al Qaeda attack in Western Europe or North American since September 11.

But developing countries such as Kenya, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have seen attacks increase.

Many of those attacks are carried out by local militant groups, but they still often have clear links to the Afghan-trained core militants of bin Laden's organisation.

"On account of its limitations, al Qaeda must now relinquish substantial operational initiative and responsibility to local talent, which post-attack investigations have revealed usually include jihadists trained in Afghanistan," it said.