In the wake of the Afghan and Iraqi wars, international terrorism is being forced from living off state support, and having huge training camps in isolated areas, to hiding out in small groups, analysts in London said this week.

Michael Clarke of the think tank the International Policy Institute said the United States has clearly transmitted the message that "it won't tolerate countries which it thinks are part of harboring terrorism. It will go after them."

And the military effort has been complemented by a cracking down on financing for terrorist groups that has sharply cut their funding, Clarke said.

"If you're in the business of state-sponsored terrorism, it's time for a re-think," said Paul Cornish, director of another think tank, the Center for Defence Studies.

"But non-state terrorism is coming your way," Cornish said.

"The deterrent effect is really quite powerful," Clarke said, referring to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime that was harboring Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group, and the invasion of Iraq with the United States accusing Saddam Hussein of destabilizing the Middle East and being a possible source of weapons of mass destruction for terrorists.

"International terrorism groups are more homeless than they were five years ago. They can't operate in conventional ways with training camps in the open," as they did in Afghanistan.

"They must go into a cell structure," he said.

Clarke pointed to the example of Yemen which sponsored terrorist training camps in the past but is now cooperating with the United States.

Clarke said terrorist groups tend to follow a pattern, where people at first do not realize how deadly they can be, and then they shock the world with a dramatic attack, such as the September 11 strikes in the United States by al-Qaeda.

This rouses states like the United States and Britain to counter-attack and forces the terrorists to survive by melting into populations and forming underground cells.

When the terrorists do this, they are "far less organized but still dangerous," Clarke said.

All they need is to carry out headline-making attacks once in a while.

"If an eye-catching attack takes place every three years, everyone fears them," he said about terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, countries like Syria, which the United States calls a terrorist state, and Iran, which Washington accuses of sponsoring terrorism, are coming under increased US scrutiny in the wake of the Iraq war.

This is to a large extent due to their backing of Hezbollah, a group which has battled Israel, helping to force it into withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000.

Magnus Ramsdorf, a Hezbollah expert at St. Andrews University in Scotland, said it "should come as no surprise to anyone who's watching the war on terrorism that the face of the war on terrorism centers on Hezbollah."

Hezbollah is backed by Iran and depends on Syria for its bases and supplies in Lebanon.

Christopher Aaron, editor of the magazine Jane's Intelligence Review, said the focus on Hezbollah meant that "pressure will be put on Iran and Syria."

But he said tying Hezbollah into the fight against international terrorism was a mistake since Hezbollah is, precisely, not a homeless organization but one with a political and social role in Lebanon.

SPACE.WIRE