I Never Said That Al-Qaeda Is Stupid

So much for not worrying about the (apparent) screw-ups whom authorities have apprehended and thus consoling ourselves that they were just nutjobs. I never really bought that comfort anyway, but I know plenty of people who subscribe to that line of thinking.

Maybe with the article below having been published in the Washington Post on August 24, 2008 , those ostriches will extricate their heads and take more notice. I have my doubts, however, the further we get in time from 9/11:

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, al-Qaeda has increasingly turned to local cells that run extremely low-cost operations and generate cash through criminal scams, bypassing the global financial dragnet set up by the United States and Europe.

Although al-Qaeda spent an estimated $500,000 to plan and execute the Sept. 11 attacks, many of the group's bombings and assaults since then in Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia have cost one-tenth as much, or less.

[...]

[But] the cell responsible for the July 7, 2005, transit bombings in London needed only about $15,000 to finance the entire conspiracy, including the cost of airfare to Pakistan to consult with al-Qaeda supervisors, according to official British government probes.

[...]

Law enforcement officials in London said al-Qaeda cells are trained to plot and live on the cheap. Operatives lead ascetic lives, often keeping their day jobs or depending on their families to cover expenses. Above all, they are taught to build bombs that are lethal but crude and inexpensive. Almost every terrorist plot in Europe in recent years has followed a simple formula: homemade explosives stuffed into backpacks, shoes, suitcases or car trunks.

[...]

Cliff Knuckley, a former chief money-laundering investigator for Scotland Yard, said it's difficult to detect potential terrorist plots just by monitoring cash flows or bank transfers -- the basis of many of the anti-terrorism financing laws in place today.

"You're looking for a needle in a haystack, and unfortunately you have a field full of haystacks," Knuckley said.

Read the rest.