al Qaeda threat is changed but as great as ever, says UN

Despite international efforts, the threat from al Qaeda-related terrorism remains as great as ever but the nature of that threat has changed, according to the UN.

In the first report from the monitoring team dealing with UN sanctions against the group and Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said that the threat from the group is as real today as it has been at any time since October 1999.

Al-Qaeda operations are not characterised by high cost and only the 11 September attacks against the US required significant funding of over six figures, the report said.

What has changed is that al-Qaeda's key leadership is too preoccupied with its own immediate problems of survival to offer more than general guidance since the US invaded Afghanistan, ousted the Taliban and sought to hunt down the terrorist group.

The findings in part echo a study by an earlier monitoring group last year which reported that al-Qaeda still posed a significant threat to international peace and security, including possible use of weapons of mass destruction.

However, the UN has warned that judiciaries should not yield principles of safeguarding human rights to executives covertly combating the threat posed by terrorists.

Addressing the International Commission of Jurists in Berlin, Germany, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said that the judiciary should not surrender its "sober, long-term, principled analysis of issues to a call by the executive for extraordinary measures grounded in information that cannot be shared, to achieve results that cannot be measured".

The law that is capable of delivering justice and providing remedies for grievances is what must guide societies, not the laws like those of formerly apartheid South Africa "that regulated oppression and led to a horrific denial of dignity", she said.

In the long term, a commitment to human rights and the rule of law will be a key to success in countering terrorism, rather than an impediment, she added.

"It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that the prevention of terrorism is not pursued with a single-minded zeal that leads us to give up our freedom in exchange for our security," Ms Arbour said.

(gmcg/sp)