The 'Sleepers' Among Us
 

By David Ignatius

Washington Post, Sunday, November 18, 2001; Page B07

PARIS -- The Taliban may be on the run in Afghanistan, but what about the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of "sleeper agents" of the al Qaeda network scattered across Europe and the United States?

That is the question that vexes Jean-Jacques Pascal, chief of the French counterintelligence agency, the DST (which stands for "Direction of Surveillance of the Territory").

France sometimes antagonizes U.S. officials with its prickly diplomacy, and its military contribution in Afghanistan has been limited. But among the U.S. intelligence officers, Pascal and the DST receive very high marks. Indeed, asked recently to name a key anti-terrorist ally, a top American intelligence official instantly volunteered Pascal's name.

Pascal, 58, offered his analysis of the structure of the al Qaeda network in a rare interview (aides said it was the first on-the-record session a DST chief has ever held with foreign journalists) last week. It was held at the agency's headquarters on a quiet side street near the Eiffel Tower.

Pascal is what you might call a "Cartesian cop" -- a man who, laboring in a bland office stacked with thick files and unopened gifts on the radiator shelves, does his thinking in a very organized and analytical way. A pink Oriental rug and a Kandinsky print provide a few unlikely touches of color to what is one of the most secret locations in all of France.

The DST has unusual expertise on terrorism because France has for decades been facing attacks from Algerian and other Arab groups. In this long-running anti-terror fight, the DST has worked closely with both Israeli and Arab intelligence services.

Pascal explained that soon after taking control of the DST in 1997, he began to notice a pattern -- which he termed the "neo-Afghans" -- of Algerians traveling to Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.

These neo-Afghans were learning how to conduct "heavy" terrorist operations -- far more dangerous than the homemade nail bombs and exploding gas canisters that Algerian groups had used to attack Paris subways and department stores during the mid-1990s, Pascal said. And they were drawn from a different milieu -- not rough street kids from the ghettos of Marseilles but educated and seemingly assimilated young men.

What worried Pascal was that hundreds of these men were returning from Afghanistan and settling back into the European landscape. They were "sleepers," he said -- waiting for orders to attack. The DST issued a first intelligence report warning about this neo-Afghan threat in 1998.

By watching the travelers and their networks, the DST was able to disrupt some planned al Qaeda operations. In March 1998, for example, authorities broke up a cell that was planning to bomb the World Cup soccer matches that summer in France. Pascal said the effort involved unusual cooperation among police and intelligence agencies in many different European countries. "It showed that Europe existed," he said.

The DST worked with its European allies to break up another Islamic cell in Frankfurt that was planning an attack during the Christmas holidays in 2000 in Strasbourg, home of the European parliament. And this September, the French worked with other nations to bust a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

Pascal described bin Laden's network as a loosely organized confederation of terrorist groups, rather than a tightly disciplined movement. He used the French word "mouvance," which means "sphere of influence."

The al Qaeda structure is a loose spine, Pascal explained, with some tough lieutenants and liaison officers who plan operations and give orders. "They stiffen it," he said. At this hard core are Egyptian groups linked with Islamic Jihad. The core also includes an Algerian faction called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which turned to international terror in the late 1990s as an offshoot of its war against the Algerian military.

This inner core receives central financing for its operations, which allows its agents to blend into the countries where they hide. But Pascal noted that the recent global crackdown on al Qaeda front companies and financial accounts may dry up this covert funding.

The French official warned that beyond this central spine of al Qaeda are dozens of what he called "artisanal" terror groups -- small, semi-independent cells that finance their operations by petty crime, such as document forgery. While less professional (Pascal called some of their operatives "rustic") these splinter groups will be hard to detect and control.

Pascal also warned that new theaters for terrorist attacks could emerge because of Muslim movements in Indonesia, the Philippines, Kashmir and the Uighur regions of western China.

The DST chief was agnostic about two big questions -- whether Iraq has links to bin Laden's nebulous "mouvance" and whether bin Laden has access to nuclear or biological weapons. He expressed skepticism about some recent press reports on these topics but he didn't offer any information of his own.

Will success in Afghanistan bring any respite from al Qaeda? "I like to discuss them in the past tense," said Pascal, "as long as they are off balance and hiding out in caves."

But danger still lurks in that hidden network of neo-Afghan sleeper agents, Pascal said, and "what they may have in their portfolio."