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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

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LONDON -- Iraq has become the new epicenter for al-Qaida cells waging holy war against the West, one of the world's foremost experts on terror said Tuesday.

If the U.S.-led coalition forces pulled out of Iraq now, attacks in Europe would increase and troops would have to go back in two to three years, said Rohan Gunaratna, the head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

"The epicenter has shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq," he told a conference of business leaders on how to prepare for terror threats.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the al-Qaida chain of command, has been building a support base in Europe, he said. Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant, was endorsed by Osama bin Laden after Zarqawi was killed last June by a U.S. airstrike.

Al-Masri is believed to have joined the "jihad" or "holy war" in the 1980s and has close ties with Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader. That means al-Qaida in Iraq is likely to be drawn closer to the mainstream al-Qaida leadership than under Zarqawi, a Jordanian who ran his operation in Iraq with great autonomy until his death.

Gunaratna said most al-Qaida cells, including north African cells, had people in Iraq. They present a real risk because they see the West as a threat to their way of life, he said.

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