Many U.S. allies and Americans "perceive American leadership as dangerously arrogant in its exercise of the U.S.'s superior military power," IISS said.

LONDON, May 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Washington's policy during the Iraq crisis has harmed its position on the world stage, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) charged Tuesday, May 13, asserting that Al-Qaeda remains the greatest threat to global security.

In its annual strategic survey, the reputable security think-tank underlined that "many of the U.S.' allies and partners, and to an even greater extent their populations, perceive American leadership as dangerously arrogant in its exercise of the United States' superior military power," the report said.

"Europeans and others feared that a kind of risky idealism had come to dominate U.S. foreign policy since September 11," said the IISS report.

The think-tank said that the stiffest challenges over Iraq were not military but the political difficulties that followed the war, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

These difficulties were: transforming Iraq into a liberal democracy; finding a role for the U.N.; conflict-resolution between the Israelis and the Palestinians; finding a better accommodation between the West and Islam; and controlling the effect of the "war on terrorism."

The most immediate concern after the war was "rebuilding the international institutions that were so severely buffeted in the Iraq debate," asserted the IISS.

While the international community must also concentrate on setting up a unified Iraq and ensuring stability in the Middle East, its broader preoccupation must be with the United Nations, the European Union and NATO, added the international security think-tank.

"The key players in weakening these institutions were the U.S. and France -- the leaders, respectively of the pro-war and anti-war camps. They too must be the prime movers of the reconstruction of the institutions," the IISS report said.

Greatest Threat

Al-Qaeda remains the greatest threat to global security, the IISS said, describing the network as "more insidious and just as dangerous" as when it allegedly carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"The most pressing and resilient American and global concern was still al-Qaeda," the widely-respected body said in its annual evaluation and forecast of world affairs.

The network was "now reconstituted and doing business in a somewhat different manner, but more insidious and just as dangerous as in its pre-11 September incarnation," said the IISS report.

Al-Qaeda implied in a message received by a Saudi weekly newspaper that it carried out a triple bombings in Riyadh overnight, after U.S. officials accused the group of being behind the attack in which at least 29 people were killed and some 194 others wounded.

Although one third of al-Qaeda's 30 senior leaders and 2,000 rank-and-file members had been killed or detained there was "a rump leadership intact and over 18,000 potential terrorists still at large, with recruitment continuing," IISS said.

"The group's leadership blended into the frenetic cities of Pakistan, Karachi in particular, where sympathizers abounded," claimed the report.

The only physical infrastructure al-Qaeda needed were safe-houses to assemble bombs and weapons caches," IISS said.

"Otherwise notebook computers, encryption, the Internet, multiple passports and the ease of global transportation enabled al-Qaeda to function as a 'virtual' entity," according to the security think-tank.

"Al-Qaeda's greatest advantage was the logistical and operational flexibility provided by having no state to defend, which allowed it to maintain a flat, transnational and clandestine organizational scheme," the report said.