Arrests linked to al-Qaeda this week in the US and Morocco and last month in Pakistan suggest that Osama bin Laden's terror network is far from neutralised, reports Mark Hubband
The arrest last month in Chicago of José Padilla, who now calls himself Abdullah al-Muhajir, on suspicion of planning to detonate a radiation bomb is the latest sign that the al-Qaeda terrorist network has survived global efforts to destroy it.
It is also further evidence that al- Qaeda has access to operatives who are able to blend effectively into the countries in which they are thought to be planning attacks.
Pakistani authorities cannot confirm whether Padilla is the al-Qaeda operative he is accused of being. Adopting multiple identities is part of the network's strategy, making it difficult for the authorities to be "certain about who has been arrested and where", according to a senior Pakistani official.
The case of Padilla, a US citizen and a convert to Islam, bears a striking resemblance to the Briton Richard Reid. Known as the "shoe-bomber", Reid is alleged to have smuggled a bomb hidden in one of his shoes on to a transatlantic flight last December.
His attempt was halted when he was apprehended by suspicious passengers and crew.
Both men have criminal records, Reid converting to Islam while in jail and Padilla while on remand following his release after serving a 10-month sentence for firearms offences in the US. Both appear to have come from similarly unstable family backgrounds.
They contrast sharply in character with the largely well-educated, middle-class suicide hijackers - all of them Arabs and Muslims from birth - who plotted and launched the September 11th attacks in the US.
Padilla's capture is a big success for the US and Pakistani security services, but it is a reminder that the terrorist network of which he appears to have been a part is still capable of despatching operatives around the world, despite intensified efforts to stop it.
The announcement of his arrest - a month after he was apprehended - came just hours before Moroccan authorities said they had detained three Saudi Arabians with the help of US, British and Spanish intelligence services.
Morocco said the three had admitted to being associated with al-Qaeda and planning to ram dinghies packed with explosives into US and British naval vessels passing through the Straits of Gibraltar.
Al-Qaeda's failures since September 11th have, however, been matched by significant successes which testify to its continued ability to operate globally.
On April 16th, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for an attack on a synagogue in the Tunisian town of Djerba a week earlier. The bomber, a resident of Lyons, France, drove a lorry loaded with fuel alongside the synagogue and blew it and himself up.
The blast killed 21 people, 14 of them German tourists. An al-Qaeda statement said the attack was carried out in response to Israel's "crimes against the Palestinian people" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Both the bomber and an alleged accomplice in Germany are believed by German authorities to have had ties to known al-Qaeda activists, including the Hamburg-based hijackers behind the September 11th attacks.
In addition, the German accomplice is known to have trained in al- Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, Germany says.
Last month, Pakistani police arrested five people believed to be connected to the three main suspects in a car bomb attack which killed 11 French nationals and three Pakistanis in Karachi on May 8th.
The attack has been blamed on Jaish-i-Muhammad, a group which sheltered al-Qaeda fugitives and was linked to the deposed Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
On May 9th, al-Qaeda issued a statement condemning the arrest of those alleged by the Pakistani authorities to have been behind the Karachi bombing.
Al-Qaeda's ability to function since it was routed in Afghanistan has depended in part upon its continued support within Pakistan.
A senior Pakistani official said: "The arrest [of Padilla\] is a significant breakthrough in efforts to neutralise al-Qaeda but it also exposes the dangers that Pakistan has come to face. Frankly, it illustrates a wider security problem, which is that al-Qaeda has not only arrived in Pakistan but is also presenting a wider problem for us and the rest of the world."
Information leading to Padilla's arrest as well as al-Qaeda's plans to build a "dirty bomb" is said by US officials to have come from Abu Zubaydah, the highest-ranking al-Qaeda official in US custody.
• Mark Hubband is a Financial Times journalist based in London with extensive international experience