WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush’s ‘war against terrorism’ does not appear to be going as well as planned.

While the White House succeeded in cowing sufficient numbers of Democrats last week to get Congress’ approval for war with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a series of attacks on key western targets have suggested that, despite its defeat in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and its supporters are far from finished.

Saturday night’s devastating car-bombing of a night club on the Indonesian paradise island of Bali capped two weeks of pin- prick but nonetheless lethal attacks from Yemen to the Philippines that were either organised or possibly inspired by Al Qaeda.

The sudden appearance of an audio tape by Al Qaeda’s number two, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, last week, as well as a purported statement by Osama bin Laden that hailed two recent attacks in Kuwait and Yemen and was broadcast over Qatar’s Al Jazeera television station on Monday, have further disconcerted the war’s Washington commanders.

While US and allied intelligence agencies tried to determine the authenticity of both communications, as well as the provenance of the recent attacks, Washington was still trying to absorb the implications of potentially serious political setbacks to their ambitions.

Administration officials remain furious that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won re-election last month by stressing his refusal to participate in a US invasion of Iraq, which he called an “adventure”.

“We would expect that in France, but not in Germany,” said one official.

Even more distressing, particularly for those running the “war against terror”, on the ground, was last Thursday’s vote in Pakistan, when a coalition of Islamist parties emerged with much greater support than anyone had predicted.

Another national election in the region also has US officials on edge, this one in Turkey, a key ally in any war against Iraq. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), the latest incarnation of an Islamist party that has been banned repeatedly for violating the country’s secularist constitution, is poised to win at least a third of the popular vote and emerge as the nation’s largest party by far.

Experts say its popularity is due far more to the corruption and inefficiency of its secular rivals than to hostility to Washington or the war on terrorists. But growing anger in Turkey about Israel’s actions against Palestinians, Washington’s strong backing for Israel, and the perception that Bush is forcing Turkey to support a risky war against Iraq has reportedly added to expectations about the AKP’s showing.

While its leaders have stressed that the AKP will co-operate with US strategy in the region and the International Monetary Fund’s efforts to bail out its struggling economy, a sweeping victory by the party could set up a new confrontation with Turkey’s staunchly pro-U.S. and pro-Israel military establishment that was behind the ouster of the last Islamist government in 1997.

While the Nov 3 congressional elections are still more than two weeks away, the administration is clearly more focused on the series of attacks that have been carried out against US and other western targets since earlier this month.

Just a week ago, a French oil tanker was badly damaged in an explosion in Aden harbour in Yemen. The government, which has also received several hundred members of US special operations forces to advise them on counter-insurgency operations against alleged Al Qaeda members or their allies, insisted at first that the explosion was due to a fire on the ship.

But investigators now appear convinced by eyewitness reports that a small craft set off that explosion in the same way that a US warship docked there was attacked by Al Qaeda operatives in 2000.

Two days after the attack on the tanker, two gunmen in a pickup truck killed one US marine and injured another in an assault carried out on a Kuwaiti island during US training exercises. The following day, another marine fired on a vehicle from which he said a gun was poised to shoot.

Despite Kuwait’s alliance with the United States - indeed, the sheikhdom is expected to be the main launching pad for any US invasion of Iraq - recent reports have indicated growing anti-US sentiment, particularly within followers of the main Islamist Party, which holds as a third of the seats in the Kuwaiti Parliament.

While fingers quickly pointed to Al Qaeda — or what Washington alleges is its local ally in Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah — as the likeliest suspect in the Bali blast, Jemaah leader Abu Bakar Baasyir vehemently denied it.

One Indonesia expert here, University of Washington Prof. Dan Lev, said the fact that it took place on a predominantly Hindu island and in a spot that would be little frequented by Muslims did suggest the possibility of an Islamist connection.

But it could also have been a provocation by elements in the army, whose ties to Jemaah go back almost 30 years. If blame could be diverted, such an incident would demonstrate to both Indonesians and Washington that “you really need the army to restore stability throughout the country”.

“The army has access to explosives, they have the experience, and they move with relative ease,” said Lev, stressing that there was premature to reach any conclusion.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.