Fight terrorism with a rapier, and not with a blunderbuss

The arrest of a group of al-Qa'ida suspects in Pakistan and the charging of five more in the United States was conveniently timed, just after the anniversary of the date that made Osama bin Laden famous.

But we should not be too cynical. Although they are all, of course, innocent until proven guilty, against the five in the US and at least one in Pakistan there seems a well-founded case to answer on terrorism-related charges.

This is, after all, the kind of response to 11 September last year on which the world should be expending its energies. The most immediate task should always have been the police and intelligence operation to identify the organisation behind the atrocity and to bring to justice those responsible who did not die in it.

To the extent that they serve those objectives, developments over the past week are a more fitting way of marking last week's solemn anniversary than the thinly-stretched logic of preparing for war against Saddam Hussein. The arrest in Karachi of Ramzi Binalshibh, a year to the day after the suicide hijackings which he is alleged to have boasted of helping to plan, is particularly hopeful.

Despite the suggestion in the right-wing press yesterday that Tony Blair's dossier of casus belli will contain evidence that Saddam trained al-Qa'ida fighters, no such evidence has been forthcoming yet. Nor do we expect it on 24 September, when the dossier is due to be published.

The case for military action against Saddam is separate from the policy towards al-Qa'ida. Indeed, given that a war in Iraq would make acts of extremist Muslim terrorism more likely, the aims of regime change in Iraq and of minimising the risk of a repeat of 11 September are in conflict.

Let us therefore resist the misguided assumptions of the "war against terrorism", and President George Bush's assertion that an "axis of evil" connects all those who are "against us" because they are not for us. The proper response to suicidal anti-US terrorism should be specific and rapier-like, as should be the response to a locally dangerous dictator. A blunderbuss against all baddies risks making both problems worse.