Al-Qaida spend little on terror attacks, says report

AL-QAIDA spent less than €45,000 on each of its major attacks except the September 11 suicide hijackings, and one of its hallmarks is using readily available items like mobile phones and knives as weapons, a UN report says.

The first report released by a new team monitoring UN sanctions against al-Qaida detailed how little it cost the network to mount operations - and how most attacks involved unsophisticated arms and explosives.

The report said the March attacks in Madrid, in which 10 bombs exploded on four commuter trains, using mobile phones as detonators, cost about €9,000 to carry out. The blasts killed 191 people.

Only the US attacks on September 11, 2001 using four hijacked aircraft "required significant funding of over six figures", the report said. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks.

The report says sanctions had "a limited impact", mainly because the Security Council has reacted to events "while al-Qaida has shown great flexibility and adaptability in staying ahead".

It cited al-Qaida's transformation from an organisation supporting Afghan fighters run by Osama bin Laden, "to its current manifestation as a loose network of affiliated underground groups".

This network of groups does not wait for orders but launches attacks against targets of its own choosing, using minimal resources and exploiting publicity "to create an international sense of crisis", the report said.

"There is no prospect of an early end to attacks from al-Qaida-associated terrorists," it says. Al-Qaida promoted "the idea that Islam and the West are at war".

Except for the New York attacks, al-Qaida's attacks have been inexpensive.

The nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, in October 2002 killed 202 people and cost less than €45,000, as did the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 231 people.

And the November 2003 suicide bombings in Istanbul, Turkey killed 62 people and cost less than €37,000.

UN sanctions require member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against those with al-Qaida links, currently 317 individuals and 112 groups, and to freeze assets.