Al-Faruq's story is a particularly useful keyhole through which to peer into the world of modern terrorism. Above all, his tale reveals the global nature of the al-Qaeda threat, as disparate groups and individuals form coalitions to fight a common, faraway foe. Islamic terrorist groups are not new; in one form or another and in countries from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, they have existed for decades. But until recently, the groups conducted local campaigns against local targets. Algerian organizations like the Armed Islamic Group (gia), for example, focused their operations on the hated, secular Algerian government. In a similar vein, terrorist organizations in Pakistan concentrated on pressing the government to adopt Islamic law and waging a guerrilla war in Kashmir.

Osama bin Laden changed all of that, identifying America as the principle foe of Islam and urging his followers to launch attacks against U.S. civilians anywhere. By the time al-Qaeda was established in something like its present shape in the early 1990s, its message was worldwide jihad. Al-Qaeda, says Zachary Abuza of Simmons College in Massachusetts, taught the locally based terrorist groups to "talk together and network." As if to make the point, al-Qaeda's leadership has never been drawn from any one country. Bin Laden is a Saudi; his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is Egyptian. Other top al-Qaeda leaders and bin Laden associates have been Pakistani, Palestinian, Chechen, Mauritanian, North African and Southeast Asian. By the late 1990s, local groups were increasingly linking up under al-Qaeda's mantle in international actions often aimed at the U.S. or its friends. Al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan — where as many as 10,000 recruits may have trained — were vital to the mission. The camps were useful not only for plotting attacks safe from the prying eyes of police forces but, just as important, they were also vital centers where men from widely different backgrounds who had once had very different causes learned to trust and work with one another.

The war in Afghanistan meant that the terrorists' strategy had to change. Al-Qaeda's central organization has been severely degraded, with some its key members killed or captured and others on the run. But many of the older, local terrorist groups are as formidable as they ever were and now have a track record of linking up with others of like mind around the world.

The destruction of the camps in Afghanistan has turned al-Qaeda into a more elusive organization. Though there are al-Qaeda members still in Afghanistan — one Afghan intelligence official keeps a map on his wall dotted with blue marks for places where al-Qaeda is "still active and recruiting" — in all likelihood, the terrorist groups are no more than 10 strong. Local officials contradict reports that significant numbers of al-Qaeda members have returned to Afghanistan since the war. Even in neighboring Pakistan, al-Qaeda members aren't entirely secure. In some relatively lawless tribal areas that border Afghanistan, terrorists can hide — though the Pakistani army claims to be hunting them down. But last week's arrests suggest that the teeming slums of Lahore and Karachi may no longer be safe; the night before the raid on Binalshibh's safe house, according to a Pakistani law-enforcement official, intelligence operatives picked up 15 men for questioning on terrorist activities in raids on two neighborhoods in eastern Karachi. A Western diplomat in Islamabad thinks it is now sufficiently dangerous for al-Qaeda members to move around Pakistan and communicate with each other that the network's strength has been affected.

Beyond the subcontinent and Central Asia, al-Qaeda is feeling the heat. Since last September, nearly 3,000 people suspected of involvement in al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups have been arrested. European governments — some of which were aggressively dismissive of the terrorist threat a year ago — are now actively involved in the crackdown. They've done a "fantastic job," says Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism analyst at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, "unearthing cells, sharing intelligence, doing pre-emptive arrests and raids." An American diplomat in Europe adds that law-enforcement authorities in Southeast Asia are cooperating with the U.S. far more than before. "The effort worldwide and in Afghanistan," the diplomat says, "did a better job of tearing the guts out of al-Qaeda than we give ourselves credit for."

Sounds great — until you hear Ranstorp estimate that for every terrorist suspect detained worldwide, nine may be at large. And paradoxically, the destruction of the camps has, in a sense, made investigators' jobs more difficult. When the U.S. decided to bomb the camps, they were a big fat target; now American and allied forces have to hunt down terrorists, not by the score, but one or two at a time. Hence the conclusion of Steven Simon, who worked on counterterrorism in the Clinton White House: "On the whole, they're better off without Afghanistan. They now have total global mobility." Probably thousands of al-Qaeda sympathizers escaped the bombing in Afghanistan and made their way back to their home countries, traveling to Europe through Iran and Turkey or to Southeast Asia through Pakistan and Bangladesh. French officials are convinced that many graduates of the camps were sent out of Afghanistan before Sept. 11. (The five men detained in Lackawanna allegedly trained in Afghan camps in the summer of 2001.) "You have to wonder," says a French antiterrorism official, "how many were dispatched to Europe, Africa and the U.S. before the attacks on New York and Washington."

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