Terrorism Expert surfaces again - Lest we forget

Analyse this

by Gary Hughes [Melbourne Age/ July 20 2003]

Whenever a comment has been needed about al-Qaeda or terrorism, Rohan Gunaratna has been there to supply it. Who is he? Rohan Gunaratna describes as a spiritually defining moment the day in March 2001 when he learned that the Taliban regime in Kabul had ordered the demolition of the ancient, giant statues of Buddha at Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

But it was the destruction six months later of an icon of the modern world - New York`s World Trade Towers - that changed his life in a more practical way, launching a stellar new career as a global authority on international terrorism. Gunaratna was the right person in the right place at the right time. The world`s media outlets were looking for experts to interpret how and why the world had changed and the Sri Lanka-born academic was great `talent`, providing dire warnings about the threat of Osama bin Laden`s shadowy al-Qaeda network. No one seemed to worry that, until the September 11 attacks, Gunaratna`s acknowledged expertise had been largely confined to the activities of Sri Lanka`s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or the Tamil Tigers.

In May 2002, as Australian SAS troops were hunting bin Laden`s followers south-east of Kabul, Gunaratna`s book Inside Al Qaeda : Global Network of Terror became an instant bestseller and his reputation grew accordingly, being described as one of the world`s foremost experts on Islamic terrorism.

Gunaratna, 42, had ridden a wave of success driven by the basic laws of supply and demand - there were not enough experts to meet the demand from the media and publishers for intelligence analysts able to provide a catchy quote or headline. And Gunaratna appeared happy to break the mould of the public`s traditional idea of an academic analyst, making at times startling claims based on what he said were his own intelligence `sources` and criticising governments - including Canberra - for not doing enough and being too concerned about civil liberties.

Gunaratna was also seized upon by the Australian media, including newspapers published by Fairfax, and promoted virtually unquestioningly as the leading authority on Islamic terrorism, particularly after the Bali bombing in October last year. But Gunaratna and others who belong to this new breed of media-friendly commentators, who blur the distinction between academic analysis and politics and base research on information from anonymous intelligence sources, are causing concern in some circles.

Members of Australia`s intelligence community, and in particular ASIO, are known to be dismissive of many of Gunaratna`s more sensational statements. Also under scrutiny are the financial links between analysts who highlight the dangers posed by terrorists and private corporations that stand to make money from an increased atmosphere of fear.

Members of Australia`s intelligence community, and in particular ASIO, are known to be dismissive of many of Gunaratna`s more sensational statements, such as claims that alleged military chief of the Jemaah Islamiyah network and senior al-Qaeda member Hambali had regularly visited Australia. In Britain, The Observer newspaper`s home affairs editor and long-time writer on Islamic terrorist groups, Martin Bright, describes Gunaratna as `the least reliable of the experts on bin Laden`. He says Gunaratna is often used by the British authorities as an expert witness in the prosecution of Islamist terror suspects because they can rely on him to be apocalyptic.

In Australia, journalist and commentator on intelligence issues Brian Toohey is one of the few to have openly questioned Gunaratna`s credentials, describing him as a `self-proclaimed expert` and dismissing some of his claims as `plain silly`. He uses as an example a warning by Gunaratna published in November 2001 in the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council Review that terrorist groups might try to influence Australian politicians by rallying `10,000 or 20,000 votes` in their electorates.

David Wright-Neville is senior research fellow at the Centre for Global Terrorism at Monash University and until 2002 was a senior terrorism analyst in the Office of National Assessment. Although he won`t comment directly on Gunaratna, or any other individual analyst, he says that, like in any other profession, the abilities of so- called terrorism experts ranges from the very good down to questionable.

The lack of scrutiny of their abilities, says to Wright-Neville, is partly due to the shortage of analysts and experts available to meet the massive demand for public knowledge. He says problems arise when analysts don`t make it clear when they leave the secure ground of known facts and enter into their own extrapolation when commenting to the media. The results can been headlines based on conjecture rather than reality.

Another factor, says Wright-Neville, is the use of unidentified intelligence or security sources by some analysts. Not all intelligence organisations are equally reliable and, particularly in some south-east Asian countries, can be highly politicised and running agendas for their governments. Individuals in intelligence agencies can selectively leak information to analysts - or to the media - to influence public debate. `The context in which information is obtained is vital,` he says. It is also important not to put too much weight on intelligence sources. `Intelligence is an imprecise science,` says Wright-Neville.

Gunaratna`s credentials in biographical information published in books, magazines, newspapers and on the internet, are at first glance impressive. His book Inside Al Qaeda states: `Rohan Gunaratna, the author of six books on armed conflict, was called to address the United Nations, the US Congress and the Australian Parliament in the wake of September 11, 2001. He is a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, St Andrews University, Scotland. Previously, Gunaratna was principal investigator of the United Nations` Terrorism Prevention Branch and he has served as a consultant on terrorism to several governments and corporations.`

After The Sunday Age made detailed checks on Gunaratna`s biographical details, he confirmed last week that there was no such position as principal investigator at the UN`s Terrorism Prevention Branch and he worked there in 2001-02 as a research consultant. He also confirmed that, rather than directly addressing the UN, Congress and the Australian Parliament, he had actually spoken at a seminar organised by the parliamentary library, given evidence to a congressional hearing on terrorism and delivered a research paper to a conference on terrorism organised by the UN`s Department for Disarmament Affairs.

Gunaratna`s first six books on armed conflict were all relatively obscure works on the Tamil Tigers. One of the books, South Asia at Gunpoint, brought him to notice in Australia in October 2000 with claims that a Tamil Tiger support network had shipped a small helicopter and micro-light aircraft to Sri Lanka and that a Tamil Tiger arms smuggling ship had visited Australia in 1993. Although the local Tamil community was outraged, at least one of the allegations was shown to have a basis in fact. An SBS Dateline report telecast that same month tracked down the Newcastle shop owner who had been questioned by ASIO after being approached by an alleged Tamil Tiger sympathiser in 1994 wanting to buy hang gliders and have them shipped to Malaysia. The information appears to have come through Gunaratna`s very close links with Sri Lanka`s intelligence service. Gunaratna worked for the Sri Lanka Government between 1984 and 1994.

The trail of financial support and weapons supplies to the Tamil Tigers took Gunaratna into the wider world of international terrorism, including Afghanistan, where the Tamil Tigers obtained small arms. His research into the Tamil Tigers and their methods also made him an authority on suicide bombers - knowledge that would stand him in good stead following the September 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington.

In July 2001, he co-authored (with three others) an article called Blowback in Jane`s Intelligence Review, which looked at Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in light of evidence from the then recently completed trials of those behind the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The article was one of the first detailed examinations of bin Laden and the origins of al-Qaeda. It quickly became a point of reference after September 11.

One former Australian intelligence officer says a problem with Gunaratna`s approach is that he tends to look at international terrorism from the perspective of how it relates to the Tamil Tigers, who declared a truce in December 2001 and opened peace negotiations. Gunaratna did much of his work on the Tamil Tigers` international links while studying in the United States in 1995-96. It was then that he began establishing important friends in the small world of intelligence analysis.

He did a master of arts at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University in 1996 and research at the University of Illinois and University of Maryland. While at Maryland, he worked with Admiral Stansfield Turner, one-time head of US intelligence. While at Notre Dame, he linked up with the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at Scotland`s St Andrews University and its massive database on terrorist incidents going back to 1968. He also got to know the centre`s then head, Dr Bruce Hoffman, with whom he has co-authored a yet to be published book on terrorism.

Gunaratna moved to Scotland to complete his doctorate at St Andrews and work as a research fellow at the terrorism and political violence centre. He also got open access to the centre`s large terrorism database, one of just a small handful of such dat...

Gunaratna moved to Scotland to complete his doctorate at St Andrews and work as a research fellow at the terrorism and political violence centre. He also got open access to the centre s large terrorism database, one of just a small handful of such databases scattered around the world. The database is a combination of material gathered by St Andrews and the Rand Corporation, the non-profit US thinktank established by the US Air Force. Now known as the RAND-St Andrews database on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict, it is largely maintained and updated by more than 30 students who comb the internet and newspapers and magazines from around the world for information on terrorist operations.

The database is not the only link between Rand and St Andrews and Rand and Gunaratna. Bruce Hoffman, the founder of the St Andrews centre for terrorism study, is now a vice-president of Rand and chief of its Washington office. And Rand, St Andrews, Gunaratna and Jane s worked together last year as private advisers to Risk Management Solutions, helping the private American corporation develop a 'US terrorism risk model' to sell to insurance companies worried about terrorist strikes. Rand, in turn, is linked to the $US3.5 billion Carlyle Group, which holds stakes in some of the world s biggest arms and defence corporations, through the former US defence secretary and deputy CIA director Frank Carlucci, who is chairman of the group and a Rand board member.

The Carlyle Group employs former President George Bush as a senior adviser, uses former US Secretary of State James Baker as its senior counsellor and has former British Prime Minister John Major as chairman of its European arm. Earlier this year, it bought a third of QinetiQ, the company floated by Britain s Ministry of Defence to commercially exploit non-secret security and defence technology. QinteQ has been negotiating with the British Government to buy the soon-to-be-privatised Security, Languages, Intelligence and Photography College, where British spies are trained.

In his biographical details on the site of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, where he is an assistant professor, Gunaratna states one of his past positions was 'principal investigator, QinetiQ Project on Terrorist Information Operations'. Gunaratna moved to Singapore this year to help establish a regional centre for terrorism research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University, where he is titled assistant professor. Not surprisingly, the centrepiece of the new research centre is a database on terrorist activities in the Asia-Pacific region.

Gunaratna says his expertise on al-Qaeda comes from interviews with the group s 'penultimate leadership' and rank and file members, hundreds of documents seized after the invasion of Afghanistan and the debriefings of al-Qaeda suspects in more than a dozen countries. It was that kind of information that led him in March to state definitively that Australian David Hicks, who has been detained at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba after his capture in Afghanistan, was 'not a member of al-Qaeda', 'did not plan to attack civilian targets', 'never intended to attack a civilian target' and was a 'romantic' not taken seriously by other Taliban fighters.

Eyebrows were raised among fellow intelligence analysts when Gunaratna reversed his position on Hicks two weeks ago, after the US announced the Australian was one of six detainees it had enough evidence against to put before a military tribunal. This time Gunaratna, said Hicks had undergone 'more advance and more specialised training' with al-Qaeda, which 'had some special plans for him'. Gunaratna attributed his change of heart to information gained from 'more recent investigations' and given to him by sources he refused to identify. Another person with raised eyebrows was Hicks Adelaide lawyer, Frank Camatta, who maintains that Gunaratna could not possibly have had access to transcripts of his client s interrogations in Guantanamo Bay. 'We d sure like to know who his sources are,' says Camatta.

REALITY CHECK

The claim: In his book Inside al-Qaeda and in several interviews, Rohan Gunaratna gives graphic details of how terrorists planned to hijack a British Airways jet at London s Heathrow Airport on September 11, 2001, and fly it into the British Houses of Parliament. The plot was foiled when aircraft in Britain were grounded immediately after the attack on New York s twin towers. The source for the information was Indian intelligence interrogations of Mohammed Afroz, a 25-year-old Muslim and suspected member of al-Qaeda, arrested in Mumbai on October 3, 2001. Afroz told interrogators he had been to flying schools in Victoria and Britain and also planned to fly a plane into Melbourne s Rialto Towers.

The reality: Afroz was released by an Indian court on indefinite bail in April, 2001 after Indian police failed to bring charges. As part of the investigation, Indian intelligence agents flew to Australia in February 2001 to check out his claims. It was reported after his release that New Delhi police believed Mumbai police made up the sensational claims allegedly made by Afroz. ASIO said in its 2002 annual report that none of the allegations made by Afroz that related to Australia could be corroborated and they were assessed 'to be lacking in credibility'.

The claim: Hambali, the operation commander of the terrorist group behind the Bali bombings, Jemaah Islamiah, and other leaders had visited Australia a dozen times, according to the Australia edition of Rohan Gunaratna s Inside al-Qaeda.

The reality: Attorney-General Daryl Williams said checks within Australia and overseas had failed to find any record of Hambali having travelled to Australia 'under his own name or any known aliases'.

Item 3: Rohan Gunaratna s Response to the expose of Gary Hughes

in Channel News Asia com., July 21, 2003 accessed Aug.8, 2003

Post 9/11, it is difficult to imagine a man who has been quoted more often on the subject of terrorism than author and academic Rohan Gunaratna. But yesterday, in a scathing attack, a Melbourne-based newspaper crucified the sources, credibility and motives of the Singapore-based analyst.

Associate Professor Gunaratna was brought to Singapore early this year to establish a programme on political violence and terrorism at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies and to help the Singapore Government in its efforts to battle terrorism. But that very expertise was somewhat mocked in the report in The Age, which quoted a British terrorism writer as saying that the Sri Lanka-born academic was the least reliable of the experts on (Osama) bin Laden . The report also detailed how Dr.Gunaratna, who authored the best seller Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network for Terror, had been less than accurate on some of his biographical details.

But even more damning was the report s suggestion that the 42-year-old academic was among a breed of media-friendly commentators who blur the distinction between academic analysis and politics and who base research from anonymous intelligence sources . Contacted last night and e-mailed a copy of the report by Today, Dr.Gunaratna reacted calmly to the broadside that has been launched against him by the Australian newspaper. My policy is not to be driven by praise, nor to be dissuaded by criticism , said the academic, who admitted that the close ties that he shared with some governments could leave him open to attacks. Although I have wanted to be totally independent, sometimes the type of interaction with governments I ve had may create the perception otherwise, especially given that governments are trying to stamp out terrorism , said Dr.Gunaratna, who worked for the Sri Lankan government between 1984 and 1994.

So, has he been used by governments to push their agenda, as suggested in the article? Yes, that is entirely possible, came the surprisingly candid reply. I am only human after all. However, he was unapologetic about his conviction that academics cannot sit in ivory towers and proscribe theory alone. Academicians have have to be more practically oriented , he said. It would even be good if governments do academic work and academics do government work. He was also quick to point out that the questioning of his biographical credentials The Age said that there was no such position as principal investigator in the UN s Terrorism Prevention Branch as stated in Dr.Gunaratna s biography was a distorted one. He said that he was the principal investigator of Project One at the UN Terrorism Branch and that The Age article was just playing with semantics .

On his use of anonymous sources, Dr.Gunaratna argued that such behaviour was necessary in his field of work. There are some sources that are still active and are very sensitive . But what about the fact that he had backtracked on David Hicks, an Australian terror detainee in Cuba? After having said in March that Hicks was not a member of Al Qaeda , Dr.Gunaratna was criticised for changing that view only after the US said that it had found enough information to prosecute the Australian. Yes, my initial assessment of David Hicks was based on information available at the time of custody. But we are dealing with continuously new data and people should not be angry if we change our assessments , he said.

And Dr.Gunaratna does not plan to respond to the report in any other form, as he holds the view that it has not damaged his reputation in the international arena. I ve worked for 20 years in this field and one article is not going to have any impact on my standing. he said. Terrorists are the worst human rights violators and I will pay the price for any criticism of my work.

Item 4: Rohan Gunaratna s claim contradicted by CIA s spokesman Bill Harlow

in Newsweek web exclusive, by Michael Isikoff & Mark Hosenball, datelined July 9, 2003 accessed Aug.8, 2003

The Kuala Lumpur Summit Redux

Was master terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed at an Al Qaeda planning summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000 that was being secretly monitored by the Malaysian secret services all under the watchful eyes of CIA?

That surprising claim was made today by Rohan Gunaratna, a widely resepcted academic expert on Al Qaeda who claims to have had access to top-secret U.S.intelligence debriefs of captured Al Qaeda terrorists. Gunaratna was an initial witness at a public hearing conducted by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Gunaratna, who said he was specifically reviewed transcripts of the interrogations of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed since his capture in Pakistan last March, testified that Mohammed actually chaired the meeting of 12 Al Qaeda principals in which the September 11 plot and other future Al Qaeda attacks were discussed. But agency spokesman Bill Harlow flatly refuted the academic s testimony today, saying the agency can now say for certain that the alleged 9-11 mastermind wasn t present. He s totally incorrect, said Harlow about Gunaratna. He got it wrong.

The issue is far from academic. The CIA has previously acknowledged that it had asked the Malaysian Special Branch to monitor the Kuala Lumpur summit and that the agency even received secret photographs of the Al Qaeda terrorists meeting there. (Immediately after the meeting, two of those present, 9-11 hijackers Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi, flew from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok and then onto Los Angeles. That information was soon known to the CIA but never passed along to other U.S.-law enforcement and border agencies that could have placed the two men on a terrorist watch list and tracked their activities inside the United States.)

If true, Gunaratna s claims about Mohammed s presence would make the intelligence failure of the CIA even greater. It would mean the agency literally watched as the 9-11 scheme was hatched and had photographs of the attack s mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, doing the plotting.But Harlow said Gunaratna may have simply been confused because of those who was present, a high ranking Al Qaeda operative named Tawfiq bin Attash, had the nickname of Khalled . And the hijacker, Al-Mihdhar, had the first name Khalid. Let s hope the rest of the commission s witnesses do better. said Harlow.


	Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Terrorism Expert surfaces again - Lest we forget