VOA常速英语2007年-What Lies Ahead for bin Laden, al-Qaida?

By Ravi Khanna
Washington
12 December 2007
 

More than six years after the terrorist attacks on the United States, and billions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost in the war on terror, two questions in particular go unanswered in the public mind: Where is Osama bin¹-Laden² and what lies ahead for al-Qaida? VOA'S Ravi Khanna has the story.

Even with the United States committing vast resources to the war on terror since the September 11 attacks in 2001, and other nations joining the worldwide fight against terrorism following strikes on their countries, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden remains³ free and his terrorist organization far from defeated.

Bin Laden is believed to be holed up in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has not been seen in public in years. But messages attributed to him occasionally surface to taunt⁴ the West.

Bruce Hoffman is a terrorism analyst⁵ at the U.S. Military Academy. He says there is a simple reason why bin Laden and al-Qaida are still going strong. "[In al-Qaida] Something of a corporate⁶ succession plan seems to exist where even when we take out key al-Qaida commanders and operatives there is always someone waiting in the wings to replace them," he says.

Hoffman says al-Qaida is always recruiting new militants⁷. He says the terrorist group moved into Iraq because Iraq is fertile ground for recruitment with a large number of teens without jobs. "Precisely⁸ those countries across North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia where the al-Qaida message has had greatest resonance⁹ are the same countries that today have overwhelmingly large, disproportionately large, population that is young, under the age of 17," he adds.

Al-Qaida also is not an easy target. It is evasive, like past revolutionary movements, but it is not based in a particular country nor is it trying to seize power in any nation.

"But they will help other organizations in their attempt to take control of a country, as they did with Taliban in Afghanistan, and later with other groups in Somalia and in Iraq," said Zuhair Humadi, a senior adviser¹⁰ to Iraqi Vice¹¹ President Adel Abdul Mahdi

Humadi says al-Qaida's success lies in its sophistication in using and manipulating the international media, and that without the Internet, al-Qaida would be just another band of local terrorists.

 

Terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman says he is concerned that al-Qaida might try to attack in the U.S. in the next 10 months because of the upcoming presidential election. "We have been enormously successful, enormously lucky as well, in not having any terrorist incident in the past six years," he says. "But I would argue that in the next 10 months we are entering into a dangerous period in the lead up to the elections."

Another analyst, Peter Bergen at the New America Foundation, is not as concerned about that. He says if al-Qaida were capable of such an attack, it would have done it to mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks last year. He says he is worried more about possible attacks in Europe, and al-Qaida becoming established elsewhere.

"In the future, al-Qaida strategy would be to create more safe havens¹² not only in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border but extending that in Iraq, in Somalia and perhaps also in Darfur. [Osama] Bin laden has mentioned Darfur quite a lot recently, and I will anticipate that as the United Nations gets more involved, al-Qaida will be drawn¹³ there, just as they were drawn to Somalia," Bergen said.

But Bergen says al-Qaida is not without weakness. He says the terrorist group has made a strategic mistake in carrying out attacks that have killed Muslim civilians¹⁴, and now many Muslims have a different view of al-Qaida and bin-Laden. He says al-Qaida never had the support of the masses, only of the militants and extremists, and these killings¹⁵ have further damaged its image.

1 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

2 laden   

adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的

参考例句：

• He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 taunt   

n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄

参考例句：

• He became a taunt to his neighbours.他成了邻居们嘲讽的对象。
• Why do the other children taunt him with having red hair?为什么别的小孩子讥笑他有红头发？

5 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

6 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

7 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

8 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

9 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

10 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

11 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

12 havens   

n.港口，安全地方( haven的名词复数 )v.港口，安全地方( haven的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Your twenty havens would back out at the last minute anyhow. 你那二十个避难所到了最后一分钟也要不认帐。 来自辞典例句
• Using offshore havens to avoid taxes and investor protections. 使用海面的港口避免税和投资者保护。 来自互联网

13 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

14 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

15 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。