WAR ON TERROR

Scotsman: Attacks end US hopes of al-Qaeda defeat

BASKING in the glow of a swift military victory in Iraq and a series of coups against al-Qaeda, George Bush, the US president, confidently declared: "We have seen the turning of the tide" in the war against terrorism.

Cofer Black, the head of the US state department’s counter-terrorism office, went further: "This [Iraq] was the big game for them - you put up or shut up and they have failed. It proves that the global war on terrorism has been effective, focused and has got these guys on the run."

Two weeks later, after co-ordinated suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco killed dozens of people, the war on terror looks very different. Numerous US officials have crawled out of the Washington woodwork to declare that far from being on the wane, al-Qaeda is back, with new leaders and a string of targets, many of which are said to be at risk of "imminent attack".