This Has the Hallmarks of al-Qaida and Its Fingerprints Are on It

Although many have acknowledged that the hallmarks of al-Qaida were seen in the bombings in Damascus, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has added nothing further about it. He is missing the hallmarks of the parties and the regional countries, both Arab and Western, which are also involved, and the signs do not exonerate the U.S.

What Panetta is ignoring is much more serious than he acknowledges; what he has deliberately overlooked is much clearer than he has disclosed.

Everyone now recognizes the existence of those signs which Syria has mentioned from the start, warning of assistance received by al-Qaida or organizations associated with it. The dilemma is that this is not recognized; the parties behind al-Qaida are overlooked and their role ignored.

Al-Qaida — as everyone is aware — is a tool used by various forces and parties to achieve their own goals through terrorism, and these groups always fulfill al-Qaida’s needs for resources. In the same way, these backers provide the terrorists with financing and incite others to join their cause.

Logically, al-Qaida is the organization which America mobilized all the world to face and fight against, and currently, the U.S. has not announced an end to this war. However, they have hinted that they have turned a blind eye while the organization’s branches and assets operated under different names and varied according to their needs, purposes and goals.

Logically, too, the Obama administration did not deny its reconciliation with Islamist ideas or that it has reproduced many of the methods and ways of Muslim groups, even creating matching organizational, ideological and hierarchical forms. In essence, the American relationship with al-Qaida has remained ambiguous and questionable, given that the basis of U.S. ideas and American tools funneled directly though Saudi funding.

In essence, too, the administration lacks details about al-Qaida. However, it knows precisely what al-Qaida’s properties are, and is well aware of the factions’ funding sources and the other sources providing them with assistance in various forms.

If the bombings had the hallmarks of al-Qaida, then the parties that helped it or helped its members and gave it finances, provocation and facilities, in the end, bear the hallmarks of America and the West through resources already existing in the region, whether Turkish or from the oil emirates.

The fingerprints of al-Qaida on these acts of terrorism are apparent to us, because of the factions’ trademarks which openly call for taking up arms. It is obviously clear that al-Qaida believes they have protection, care, safe haven and safe conduct.

Just as al-Qaida and its offshoots bear the responsibility for the terrorism it has perpetrated, these other factions are equally responsible, or in some cases more responsible, especially when it takes place in this fertile climate, so rampant and so terribly bloody.

The responsibility is divided among the states, forces and organizations that subsist on terrorism and live off of the leaders of sedition, and the inflammatory opinions they distribute through the media and through the Gulf sheikhs’ money and also continue by means of logistical support provided by the U.S. government and the progress of the insurgency, which is supported by contributions.

It is clear that they bear responsibility themselves and that there are also those implementing terrorism, planning, financing and producing terrorist thought and dark ideology.

Just as al-Qaida is used to implement others’ purposes, and its growth, spread and aggrandizement is ignored, it in turn uses the factions that support terrorism by condoning their actions and attitudes, the provocative language in the media and fatwas of death made by their sheikhs.

It is true that the hallmarks of al-Qaida are found on the bombings that have been seen in the cities of Syria, and the parallel is also true, in that the Gulf sheikhdoms funded the phenomenon in Turkey through the states, individuals, political parties and organizations, and gave them into the service of America and the West and Israel.