NEWS ANALYSIS

Al Qaeda threat has analysts split into 2 opposing camps

WASHINGTON: A bitter personal struggle between two powerful figures in the world of terrorism has broken out, forcing their followers to choose sides. This battle is not being fought in the rugged no man's land on the Pakistani-Afghan border. It is a contest reverberating inside the Beltway between two of America's leading theorists on terrorism and how to fight it, two men who hold opposing views on the very nature of the threat.

On one side is Bruce Hoffman, a cerebral 53-year-old Georgetown University historian and author of the highly respected 1998 book "Inside Terrorism." He argues that Al Qaeda is alive, well, resurgent and more dangerous than it has been in several years. In his corner, he said, is a battalion of mainstream academics and a National Intelligence Estimate issued last summer warning that Al Qaeda had reconstituted in Pakistan.

On the other side is Marc Sageman, an iconoclastic 55-year-old Polish-born psychiatrist, sociologist, former CIA case officer and scholar-in-residence with the New York Police Department. His new book, "Leaderless Jihad," argues that the main threat no longer comes from the organization called Al Qaeda, but from the bottom up - from radicalized individuals and groups who meet and plot in their neighborhoods and on the Internet. In his camp, he said, are agents and analysts in highly classified positions at the CIA and FBI.

If Hoffman gets inside organizations - focusing on command structures - Sageman gets inside heads, analyzing the terrorist mind-set. But this is more important than just a battle of ideas. It is the latest twist in the contest for influence and resources in Washington that has been a central feature of the struggle against terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

Officials from the White House to the CIA acknowledge the importance of the debate of the two men as the government assesses the nature of the threat. Looking forward, it is certain to be used to win bureaucratic turf wars over what programs will be emphasized in the next administration.

If there is no main threat from Al Qaeda - just "bunches of guys," as Sageman calls them - then it would be easier for a new U.S. president to think he could save money or redirect efforts within the huge counterterrorism machine, which costs the United States billions of dollars and has created armies of independent security consultants and counterterrorism experts in the last seven years.

Preventing attacks planned by small bands of zealots in the garages and basements just off Main Street or the alleys behind Islamic madrasas is more a job for the local police and the FBI, working with undercover informants and with authorities abroad. "If it's a 'leaderless jihad,' then I can find something else to do because the threat is over," said Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, who puts himself in Hoffman's camp. "Leaderless things don't produce big outcomes."

On the other hand, if the main task can be seen as thwarting plots or smiting Al Qaeda's leaders abroad, then attention and resources should continue to flow to the CIA, the State Department, the military and terror-financing sleuths.

"One way to enhance your budget is to frame it in terms of terrorism," said Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "But the problem is that 'Al Qaedatry' is more art than science - and people project onto the subject a lot of their own preconceptions."

The divide over the nature of the threat turned nasty, even by the rough standards of academia, when Hoffman reviewed Sageman's book this spring for Foreign Affairs in an essay, "The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism: Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters." He accused Sageman of "a fundamental misreading of the Al Qaeda threat," adding that his "historical ignorance is surpassed only by his cursory treatment of social-networking theory."

In the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs, Sageman returns fire, accusing Hoffman of "gross misrepresentation." In an interview, Sageman said he could not explain his rival's critique: "Maybe he's mad that I'm the go-to guy now."

Some terrorism experts find the argument silly - and dangerous.

"Sometimes it seems like this entire field is stepping into a boys-with-toys conversation," said Karen Greenberg, executive director of New York University's Center on Law and Security. "Here are two guys, both of them respected, saying that there is only one truth and only one occupant of the sandbox. That's ridiculous. Both of them are valuable."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a former director of central intelligence, sees merit in both sides, too; he said in Singapore last week that Al Qaeda was training European, and possibly American, recruits. But, he added, "You also have the development of violent, extremist networks."

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