People like Osama bin Laden symbolises a secret and 'romantic' yearning among the Muslims in general, and the Arabs in particular, to be 'free' of Western 'domination' and be in 'greater control of their destiny'.

The original goal was to drive the US out of Saudi Arabia which the former has almost occupied since the liberation of Kuwait. Osama wants to imitate Lawrence of Arabia who drove the Turks out of the Arab states.

There is a nice cosy arrangement going on in Afghanistan between the Pakistan Army/Intelligence Services, the Taliban and Osama. The heroin traffic provides the revenue to fund Mujahideen, jihads everywhere and Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

India, meanwhile, must really worry that proceeds from heroin trafficking is helping Pakistan buy valuable time. If not for such proceeds, the collapse of Pakistan would have been a matter of months rather than years. India must see Pakistan's ability to somehow carry on as a grave setback to pacification of the entire Indian subcontinent.

The process of compartmentalisation makes it difficult to link Islamic fundamentalist terrorist activities directly with people like Osama. Compartmentalisation, for those unfamiliar, is also the organisational structure adopted by intelligence services to ensure that the big picture is seen only by the very top. Those below are just operatives and functionaries in a mercenary sense.

The struggle in the Middle-East has taken an Islamic image purely to win the support of the masses. There is nothing better than religion to whip the ignorant masses into a holy war frenzy against the 'Christian' West.

Parallels can be seen in the so-called Islamic Revolution which the Ayatollahs launched in Iran to save their vast land holdings from land reform and the Khalistan movement which basically was a struggle against the increasing emergence of India as a unitary state. This was being done at the expense of the states.

In a way, the struggle between the Arabs and the Americans is a re-visitation of Indians versus cowboys all over again. The cowboys, of course, won since they were in the employ of a state on the march while the Indians, being nomadic people, lost the land.

American interest in the Middle-East is just confined to its huge reserves of oil and gas. The day the region runs out of these two commodities, the Americans will lose interest.

Security of the oil and gas supplies is being ensured by the presence of American troops, Israel, the no-fly zones over Iraq, the inclusion of Turkey within Europe and away from the Arab/Muslim world and various arrangements with Arab states.

Still, the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon won't be the last. More terrorist attacks can be expected in the future and this may involve the use of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to tie up America's and the West's energies to their own backyard. America's military might and proposed missile defence shield will be rendered 'useless' in such a scenario. Just as Alexander the Great did on his way to Asia, US president George W Bush is faced with the Gordian knot.

The Gordian knot in the contemporary scenario, is to provide, as demanded by Arab/Muslim leaders, "proof as to who was behind the WTC/Pentagon bombings". If Bush chooses to take this path, he will have to provide the "proof".

However, if Bush emulates Alexander the Great, he will cut through the Gordian knot rather than untie it.

Cutting through the knot will mean following up on the premise that Osama is the prime suspect behind the WTC/Pentagon bombings i.e. in the sense that either he did it himself or inspired it.

If he is innocent, as he claims, he should not fear coming forward and telling all. However, even if he can clear himself of the WTC/Pentagon bombings, he is already wanted by the US on numerous other terrorist incidents. All the more reason for him to remain in hiding.

This leaves Bush no choice but to work with the UN-recognised Northern Alliance Government of Afghanistan to take out Taliban-occupied Afghanistan if it continues to harbour Osama. One factor that works in Bush's favour is the fact that the Taliban isn't recognised as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by neither the UN nor the international community except for Pakistan which sponsors the Taliban, and until recently, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, attacks against innocent Arabs, Iranians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians continue in the US. In the eyes of the American people, the terrorists cannot be separated from their 'spawning grounds'. Non-Muslims from the Arab, Iranian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian communities in the US are clearly not part of these so-called spawning grounds but are unfortunately mistakenly lumped, for their appearance, together with Muslims from the Arab states, Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh.