SURVEYING THE WORLD-WIDE TERRORISM BATTLEGROUND

A Brussels court seven days ago sentenced a Tunisian-born al Qaeda
terrorist to 10 years in jail for plotting a suicide attack on a NATO
air base. Eighteen other terrorists were sentenced for other crimes,
including passport forgeries linked to the murder by two suicide
bombers of anti-Taliban Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Massoud in September
2001.

It was a good day for a country not well known for supporting U.S.
anti-terror efforts. But Belgium's bad image in America has been
earned mainly by its noisy socialist politicians. Belgian law
enforcement officers, like their counterparts in many other countries
of the world, are mainly serious people who are cooperating with the
U.S.-led effort by searching out and jailing would-be attackers.

America's FBI and CIA deserve credit for organizing and coordinating
this effort. Neither agency has a spotless record of willingness to
cooperate with investigators in other countries, or with each other
for that matter, but they seem to be getting better at it. The war on
terrorism is necessarily a global enterprise, because al Qaeda and
related networks are themselves global -- and if they are to be rolled
up, lawmen must overcome their traditional reluctance to share
information. Some of that reluctance derives from a need to protect
sources, but a great deal of it is just innate and inexcusable
secretiveness.

The Journal last week reported the close cooperation between the CIA
and the counterintelligence authorities of Thailand in capturing a man
widely regarded as the kingpin of Asian terrorism, Riduan Isamuddin,
better known as Hambali. He is said to be operational chief for Jemaah
Islamiyah, an al Qaeda affiliate operating in Malaysia, Indonesia and
the Philippines, that is suspected of engineering the horrendous
nightclub bombing in Bali last October and the bombing of a Marriott
hotel in Jakarta in August. Four Indonesian investigators arrived in
Karachi last week to question Hambali's brother, Rusman Gunawan. He
has been arrested along with 16 other "religious students" by
Pakistani authorities on suspicion that Gunawan was running a JI
branch in Pakistan.

The arrival of the Indonesian cops preceded a visit to Pakistan by
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to further chivvy the
Pakistanis into stopping the remnants of the Taliban army from taking
refuge on Pakistani soil to escape NATO forces in Afghanistan. He told
Congress before leaving the U.S. that he didn't think the rank and
file of the Pakistani security forces were backing up the promises of
cooperation from President Pervez Musharraf. But a U.S. military
spokesman in Afghanistan denied claims by some local authorities that
the Taliban are making a comeback. "Whenever they manifest themselves
in Afghanistan, we kill them," Col. Rodney Davis told a press
conference in Kabul. And on Thursday, Mr. Armitage took positive note
of a Pakistani raid that day on a border al Qaeda training camp.

In the U.S., this strange war was most recently manifested in the
arrests of Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, a U.S. Air Force translator,
and Army Chaplain Capt. Yousef Yee, both in connection with their work
at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Some 660 alleged extremists,
most captured in Afghanistan, are being held there. The airman, a
native of Syria, is accused of passing information about the captives
to Syria.

The above is a rather broad-brush review of how the war on terror is
being conducted on many fronts, both by large armies and small groups
of investigators. Perhaps it gives some clue to the complex dimensions
of this war and to why those American politicians who want instant
gratification in Iraq and elsewhere lack even a limited grasp of what
is involved.

It is much like fighting the "war on drugs," where the U.S. has not
scored great victories, as it involves poking into thousands of
shadowy corners. In fact, the two are related: Since the Cold War
days, when the Soviet KGB was putting terrorists and guerrilla armies
into the field, terrorists have quite often financed themselves with
drug networks.

Indeed, one of the key techniques of terrorism investigators, as with
drug agents, is to follow the money. In the case of terrorism, it very
often leads back to some innocent-looking sources, such as Islamic
charities in the U.S. and Europe. In a new book titled "Modern Jihad,"
economist Loretta Napoleoni comes up with the startling conclusion
that "the New Economy of Terror is a fast-growing international
economic system, with a turnover of about $1.5 trillion, twice the GDP
of the United Kingdom." The so-called "narco-terrorists" in places
like Colombia have a huge turnover. The cash-generating activities of
terrorist groups include extortion, kidnapping, smuggling and a range
of other criminal activities.

Ms. Napoleoni concludes that the best way to fight terror is to
"identify its channels of interaction with the economies of the West
and progressively sever them -- close its avenues into the free market
and the world of capitalism."

Good advice, of course, and it is one route terrorism fighters are
pursuing. But it is easier said than done. Another new book, titled
"Funding Evil" and written by sometime Journal contributor Rachel
Ehrenfeld, notes that the U.S. State Department has identified 69
major terrorist organizations in the world. The U.S. Patriot Act,
passed in October 2001, among other things granted greater powers for
the U.S. government to snoop out the way these groups launder their
illicit revenues. The United Nations Security Council adopted
resolutions requiring member nations to aid this effort. But Ms.
Ehrenfeld writes that by April 2003, only $124 million in assets had
been frozen, $88 million overseas, a disappointing result.

No doubt the money trail should be pursued to try to block avenues of
financing and freeze the assets of terrorist groups. These efforts
certainly lead to a greater understanding of how terrorist groups
function and who are their principal leaders. They also can sometimes
provide evidence that will send terrorists to jail on ordinary
criminal charges.

But in the final analysis, the war on terrorism requires a recognition
that it is in fact a war. Protestations of religious or political
motive notwithstanding, these groups are, on the whole, criminals.
Nothing will serve but to hunt them down and put them out of business.