June 17, 2002	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 5, 1423

WASHINGTON, June 16: The al-Qaeda terrorist network has not been broken by the military campaign in Afghanistan but instead has reorganized itself into a force that is just as deadly, senior US government officials told The New York Times on Saturday.

Once-middle level operatives have taken a bigger role in the organization and are cooperating with extremists across the world, from Southeast Asia to North Africa, in a new network that is just as able to carry out terrorist attacks as its more centralized predecessor, the officials told the Times in a story published on its website.

“Al-Qaeda at its core was really a small group, even though thousands of people went through their camps,” one official told the Times, speaking of the network’s training camps in Afghanistan. “What we’re seeing now is a radical international jihad that will be a potent force for many years to come.”

Investigations by US intelligence agents have concluded that the Afghanistan campaign has not lessened the terrorist threat but made its leader, Osama bin Laden, and his deputies turn to new leaders of al-Qaeda operations, the officials said.

And, in fact, they added, the Afghanistan campaign might have made it more difficult to prevent terrorist attacks because it had spread operatives across the world who have developed ties to militant groups in other countries like Pakistan, Egypt and Algeria.

The report appeared the day after a car bombing on the US consulate in Karachi, which killed 11 people. A group calling itself al-Qanoon, or The Law, claimed responsibility, but US officials said they suspected al-Qaeda, and the Times said Pakistani officials believed a new militant coalition made up of al- Qaeda remnants was responsible.

The officials who spoke to the Times identified seven al-Qaeda operatives who have the authority and skill to carry out further attacks, including Kuwaiti Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, who helped organize the September 11 suicide hijackings in the United States, and several Egyptians who helped plan the 1998 bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The al-Qaeda reorganization has led some terrorism experts to questions whether Osama bin Laden survived US bombing runs in eastern Afghanistan, the Times said.—dpa