Although a tempting target for those who rail against Western interventionism, the fourth ministerial meeting of the WTO which begins today in the Gulf state of Qatar appears likely to pass without serious incident, according to analysts and officials.
Fears among trade representatives that supporters of Osama bin Laden might target the meeting increased after the US began retaliatory strikes against Afghanistan. Bin Laden is the suspected mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
On Wednesday security concerns intensified when a lone Qatari gunman fired on a US military base south of Doha in what local officials said was an isolated incident. US military personnel returned fire, killing the man.
Late last month when WTO chief Mike Moore visited the Muslim state to check on preparations, he said he was "fully confident with the planning and preparations," and that "Qatar has the [necessary] operational capacity and we're going ahead."
The Qatari government has said that all precautions have been taken and that their state is one of the most stable in the region.
"We will ensure the security of everyone taking part and we have the means to do so," said organizing committee spokesman Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Thani according to a report in Qatar's English-language daily, The Peninisular.
In a move to beef up defense against would-be terrorists, Qatari authorities stopped issuing visas to the country on Oct. 15 and will not resume again until Nov. 15.
While it is rumored that Qatar was chosen because of its tough security laws and relative inaccessibility in the hopes of preventing a Seattle-like debacle -- where anti-globalization protesters virtually razed a WTO ministerial meeting in 1999 -- some outside dissent will be permitted.
Qatar has said that peaceful protests will be allowed and a Greenpeace ship has been given permission to anchor in the harbor.
Lin Sheng-chung
According to Steve Chen
Despite taking precautions, however, Chen said he wasn't too concerned about security for the meeting, saying he was satisfied with the security preparations by Qatari authorities.
Others said that although the meeting could be a prime target for terrorists, Middle Eastern states -- already wary about their own fundamentalist movements -- are generally highly vigilant when it comes to the security of large meetings.
"Many of these states have concerns about their own domestic Islamic fundamentalist groups and have a heightened sense of security about any meetings whether they be international or regional," said Kevin O'brien, senior policy analyst at the European office of the Rand Corporation, a US think tank.
According to Jeremy Binnie, Middle East editor for Jane's Sentinel Security Assesments, striking a civilian target on "Arab soil could be counter productive because ... [it] might cost him support in the Arab world."
But a spokesman for bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization previously warned Westerners to leave the Gulf region, saying that if they do not "the land will burn with fire under their feet, God willing."
Local dissidents were found to have carried out an attack against a US airbase in Saudi Arabia in 1996, while al-Qaeda is suspected of having planned last year's attack against the USS Cole in Yemen and the 1998 bombings against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Binnie said that Jane's had no record of significant groupings of domestic Islamic militants operating in Qatar, but that the large number of foreign workers living there meant it wouldn't be too hard for terrorists to acquire resident permits.
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