D. NECHITAILO, Candidate of Political Sciences WHY DOES AL-QAEDA FOCUS ON AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN? Being a transnational movement, the notorious Al-Qaeda includes Islamist organizations, terrorist networks, functionaries and ordinary fighters from different countries. At the same time, it uses its own infrastructure, various sources of funding, and well-developed illegal channels for transporting weapons and people. Al-Qaeda groups operate in various regions of the world. Some states are more preferable for regrouping forces, others-for accumulating financial resources, in third countries radical Islamists can be relatively safe, hiding from the persecution of special services. These areas are referred to in Western literature and in radical Islamist publications as "white (sometimes - "black") spots". They can be called zones of special strategic interests of international Islamism. As a rule, there are" white spots " where the state itself supports Islamists, or where the centralized power is too weak. They are one of the most important objects of Islamist infrastructure. Another object of increased interest of Islamists is regional hotbeds of instability. They are trying to use them to acquire and test weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Al-Qaeda worked to develop such weapons during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.1 After the entry of US troops into Afghanistan, according to some reports, the relevant specialists and technologies were moved to other areas, and experiments in the field of creating WMD continue in safer places.2 Thus, in May 2002, Al-Qaeda operative J. Padilla came to the United States specifically to plan a terrorist attack using the so-called dirty bomb3. Another militant, D. Barot, was arrested in the UK in 2004. A detailed plan for carrying out a terrorist attack by spraying radioactive substances was found on him, but he could not find the missing components.4 According to Western analysts, since Al-Qaeda has fewer and fewer places where it ... Read more