Al Qaeda UN attacks show it is at war with the world

Washington Post:

The suicide bombings that ripped apart the U.N. headquarters building in Algiers on Dec. 11 and killed at least 37 people, including 17 U.N. employees, provided a bloody demonstration of the United Nations' emergence as a key target in al-Qaeda's global war against the West.

This year, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have threatened or targeted U.N. officials and peacekeepers in conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and southern Lebanon, where six U.N. peacekeepers were killed in a bombing in June. Even before the Algiers attack, the United Nations was already investing millions of dollars in fortifying its facilities and convoys in response to threats in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But the Algiers attack -- the deadliest for the United Nations since insurgents bombed its Baghdad headquarters in August 2003 -- provided a blunt reminder of how vulnerable the international organization is, even in relatively peaceful locales. It also raised concerns that more than a decade of efforts by the U.N. Security Council to check the influence of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic movements has exposed U.N. humanitarian agencies to new dangers.

"Al-Qaeda certainly regards the United Nations as inimical to its own interests," said Richard Barrett, head of a U.N. team that monitors the effectiveness of U.N. sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "The more the United States and other countries protect themselves, the more the battle goes to the softest target, and the U.N. is always going to be a softer target."

While the United Nations is often accused in Washington of being anti-American and anti-Israeli, its image in the Middle East -- where it serves as the chief caregiver for Palestinian refugees -- has also been tattered. U.N. sanctions against Islamic countries, including Iraq and Iran, and the agency's refusal to engage in talks with elected Hamas officials have played into the hands of those who say the global body is an agent of U.S. and Israeli interests.

Al-Qaeda's Saudi-born leader, Osama bin Laden, has long harbored strong antipathy toward the United Nations, which he blames for a spree of alleged crimes against Islam, starting with the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab world.

In the early 1990s, al-Qaeda affiliates planned attacks against U.N. headquarters, and bin Laden has put a price tag of 10,000 grams of gold -- about $137,000 -- on the lives of Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary general, and Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian diplomat who led U.N. diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. More recently, bin Laden has urged his followers to fight U.N.-endorsed peacekeepers in Sudan and Somalia.

"The United Nations is nothing but a tool of crime," bin Laden said in a 2001 statement. "We are being massacred every day while the United Nations continues to sit idly by."

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The story starts with the false premise that the UN represents the west. If it did it would be a much better organization. In too many cases it has been corrupted by the thugocracies of the third world. But occasionally it does something rational and this upsets the Islamist religious bigots of al Qaeda and other death cults like Hamas. Al Qaeda is built on hate of anyone and any organization that does not accept its weird religious beliefs. It even attacks Muslims who do not accept those weird beliefs and has in fact murdered more Muslims than any other religious group. That is why both Sunnis and Shia reject it in Iraq. What the UN needs to realize is that al Qaeda wants to starve and kill those who disagree with it and when the UN offers humanitarian assistance that is a strategic act of war against al Qaeda.