By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
LONDON - They had roots in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Jamaica: the suspected al-Qaida foot soldiers in Britain were immigrants or were children of immigrants — a new breed of recruits that underscores the changes in the organization since the Sept. 11 attacks, say experts studying the London bombings.
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These experts, who include a pioneer in personality profiling, say al-Qaida, always loosely knit, is mutating into satellites that attract local operatives bound by disenchantment with the Western societies in which they grew up. It is no longer a hierarchy with
Osama bin Laden calling the shots, they say.
"Al-Qaida version 1.0 is functionally dead," said Jerrold Post, a founding director of the
CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior. "Al-Qaida version 2.0 is almost more an ideology. ... It's an adaptive organization responding to a crisis."
With its founding fathers in hiding, and dozens of key operatives under watch, al-Qaida has changed. No longer considered capable of large transnational attacks, it is taking advantage of people who don't have to cross borders, receive cash from abroad or engage in other international transactions that might alert authorities, said Brian Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of the Rand Corp.
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