A string of significant terrorist actions, all within days of one another, in major Arab capitals, may signal that the war in Iraq is fueling the very kind of extremism it was supposed to curtail, Arab officials and analysts said Thursday. They believe that the attacks — in Damascus, Syria; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Amman, Jordan — were the acts of terrorist cells that have been formed throughout the region in response to a call by Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda, to rise up and strike the West and to the images of Americans killing Iraqis shown on television. There are as yet no direct indications that any structural or organizational ties link the loose-knit groups committing such acts, the analysts said. Rather, they are bound by a common ideology of jihad, or holy war, and common enemies — the West, particularly the United States, and Arab governments they perceive as traitors to Islam. Full Story
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