3 Lessons from London

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If the London attack limned al-Qaeda's limitations and strengths, it has not yet helped clarify what role the Iraq war has played in helping or hurting the jihadist movement. We know that some of the Madrid terrorists had watched videotaped messages from Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq. Did he also help inspire the London attackers? Jihadist groups in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations say they have found it easier to lure new recruits because the American invasion has encouraged a climate of social approval for radical Islamism. And it's virtually certain that some terrorists are improving their homegrown skills with live combat training in Iraq. David Kay, who led the CIA's hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, says European intelligence officials told him at a meeting in May that their nations are seeing "episodic evidence" of jihadists who had returned from Iraq refulgent with anti-American hatred and well-versed in bombmaking. "There is all this opportunity in Iraq for them to learn how to counter our tactics," says a U.S. counterterrorism official.

On the other hand, the roots of Islamic extremism in Europe go back much further than the beginning of the Iraq war. After all, al-Qaeda was originally founded in the 1980s to depose the Saudi monarchy, and that goal remains very important. (Just last week a Qaeda leader was killed in a shoot-out in Riyadh.) In London, North African extremists were preaching at the Finsbury Park mosque well before 9/11. And France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, has battled Muslim extremism for decades. Finally, as Bush Administration officials point out, every jihadist who gets killed in Iraq is one more who won't be plotting in Barcelona or Jakarta or Los Angeles. Denécé describes the scores of European terrorists who have ended up in Iraq as "cannon fodder."

Now that extremists have attacked in both Madrid and London, one hope is that the larger, law-abiding Muslim communities in Europe will more effectively marginalize their radicals. A British intelligence expert says British Muslims seem to be hardening toward jihadists in their midst. Muslim leaders in Britain--including the new moderate imam who runs Finsbury Park--condemned last week's attacks and appealed for tips to help find the perpetrators.

But the most enduring lesson terrorism experts have learned is that a movement as far-flung as bin Ladenism can't easily be contained. "It's been a constant truth in this discipline that by the time you've figured out what Islamists are up to, they've already moved on to something else," the French official says. At another point, he says, "We work tirelessly. We use every means at our disposal to discover and avert attacks. And we work as much as possible with our partners." Sometimes, he adds, the work pays off and attacks are averted; he mentions the bust of a Paris-based cell a couple of years ago. "But when we see what it was these people had in store for us, it makes your hair stand on end. Fortunately, we got that group. It's virtually assured that one day, we will miss another like it." --Reported by Helen Gibson/London, Bruce Crumley/Paris, Brian Bennett, Timothy J. Burger, Douglas Waller and Adam Zagorin/Washington, Jeff Israely/ Rome, Scott MacLeod/Cairo, Nathan Thornburgh/New York and William Boston/Berlin