Your Tax Dollars At Work In Waziristan

Al-Qaeda's new Number 2 leader, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been struck off the AQ organization chart as the result of a drone strike in Northwest Pakistan, the WaPo reports.

Rahman was seen as a high-priority target in the CIA drone campaign at a time when U.S. officials have described al-Qaeda as near collapse and have said that a small set of successive blows could all but extinguish the organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Last month, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said a strategic defeat of al-Qaeda was “within reach” and called for continued efforts to hammer the group’s weakened leadership with a series of attacks.

So, we've now killed AQ's Number 1, and its Number 2, and - of course - a great many of its Number 3s. When does the organization collapse?

Maybe it doesn't collapse. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, thinks AQ has already been institutionalized to such a degree that it will survive leadership changes. See his essay on just that question, which was published in The National Interest three days ago:

Being a highly talented combination of seventh-century believer and twenty-first-century CEO, bin Laden built, in al-Qaeda, an absolutely unique Muslim organization: multiethnic, multilingual, organizationally sound and resilient, religiously tolerant and militarily effective. We will see in the next few years if bin Laden was the indispensable glue that kept al-Qaeda together or if his skill, his leadership and its nearly twenty-five years of being institutionalized as an organization created a survivable entity ... My own bet is that al-Qaeda will survive, as it did after near economic ruin in Sudan (1994–96); after the pounding it took from the U.S.-NATO-Pakistan coalition (2001–02); and after the U.S. military helpfully killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s chief in Iraq (2006), whose indiscriminate targeting of Muslims almost pushed al-Qaeda to the brink of defeat.

There are plenty more AQ leaders where al-Rahman came from. And, really, what are a few drone strikes compared to all that AQ has already survived?

Libyan Rebel Coalition: One Part Democrat, Two Parts Islamicist, One Part Opportunist

National Review Online has a very informative post by John Rosenthal that quotes a French study on the extensive connections between Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion:

A new report from two French think tanks concludes that jihadists have played a predominant role in the eastern-Libyan rebellion against the rule of Moammar Qaddafi, and that “true democrats” represent only a minority in the rebellion. The report, furthermore, calls into question the justifications given for Western military intervention in Libya, arguing that they are largely based on media exaggerations and “outright disinformation.”

The report identifies four factions among the members of the eastern Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC). Apart from a minority of “true democrats,” the other three factions comprise partisans of a restoration of the monarchy that was overthrown by Qaddafi in 1969, Islamic extremists seeking the establishment of an Islamic state, and former fixtures of the Qaddafi regime who defected to the rebels for opportunistic or other reasons.

There is a clear overlap between the Islamists and the monarchists, inasmuch as the deposed King Idris I was himself the head of the Senussi brotherhood, which the authors describe as “an anti-Western Muslim sect that practices an austere and conservative form of Islam.” The monarchists are thus, more precisely, “monarchists-fundamentalists.”

The most prominent of the defectors, the president of the NTC, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, is likewise described by the authors as a “traditionalist” who is “supported by the Islamists.” The authors point out that Jalil played an important role in the “Bulgarian nurses affair,” so called for five Bulgarian nurses who, along with a Palestinian doctor, were charged with deliberately infecting hundreds of children with AIDS in a hospital in Benghazi. As chair of the Appeals Court in Tripoli, Jalil twice upheld the death penalty for the nurses. In 2007, the nurses and the Palestinian doctor were released by the Libyan government following negotiations in which French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s then wife, Cecilia, played a highly publicized role.

The report describes members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group as the “main pillar of the armed insurrection.” “Thus the military coalition under NATO leadership is supporting a rebellion that includes Islamic terrorists,” the authors write. Alluding to the major role played by the Cyrenaica region in supplying recruits for al-Qaeda in Iraq, they add, “No one can deny that the Libyan rebels who are today supported by Washington were only yesterday jihadists killing American GIs in Iraq.”

The information about King Idris, the Senussi Botherhood, and the "monarchist-fundamentalist" faction, was surprising news to me.

The full report is here, but only in French. Interesting that it was French researchers who did this work, given that the French government was the primary actor in starting this NATO intervention, and the first - I believe - to extend diplomatic recognition to the National Transitional Council.

OBL Validates R Bureau's Counterterrorism Communications Strategy

It seems that the late Osama Bin Laden believed the West had beaten him in the public image battle within the Muslim world, and he was searching for a re-branding strategy when he abruptly assumed room temperature.

Osama wanted new name for al-Qaida to repair image:

As Osama bin Laden watched his terrorist organization get picked apart, he lamented in his final writings that al-Qaida was suffering from a marketing problem. His group was killing too many Muslims and that was bad for business. The West was winning the public relations fight. All his old comrades were dead and he barely knew their replacements.

Faced with these challenges, bin Laden, who hated the United States and decried capitalism, considered a most American of business strategies. Like Blackwater, ValuJet and Philip Morris, perhaps what al-Qaida really needed was a fresh start under a new name.

The problem with the name al-Qaida, bin Laden wrote in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, was that it lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America.

-- snip --

At the White House, the documents were taken as positive reinforcement for President Barack Obama's effort to eliminate religiously charged words from the government's language of terrorism. Words like "jihad," which also has a peaceful religious meaning, are out. "Islamic radical" has been nixed in favor of "terrorist" and "mass murderer." Though former members of President George W. Bush's administration have backed that effort, it also has drawn ridicule from critics who said the president was being too politically correct.

That effort to "eliminate religiously charged words" from the USG's messaging to the Muslim world goes back at least as far as 2008 - remind me, who was President then? - when the leak of an official document from the Counterterrorism Communications Center caused a big internet stir about how the State Department had supposedly banned the word "Jihad" from its lexicon.

At least, that was the internet meme of three years ago. Google "State Department bans the word Jihad" for examples. Typically weasel-wording obscurantist Foggy Bottom political correctness run amok, etc., etc.

But today, it looks like that communications strategy had its intended effect. OBL believed that he and al Qaeda had failed to associate themselves with the Ummah, the commonwealth of Islamic believers, in the eyes of the Muslim world, where they were increasingly seen as merely terrorists rather than noble Jihadis. The fact that the USG refrained from branding them Jihadis may have contributed to the failure of OBL's strategy. Anyway, we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot for a change.

Those guys at the Counterterrorism Communications Center in International Information Programs ought to be taking a bow right now. By the way, does the Counterterrorism Communications Center still exist?

Close Encounters of the Third (al-Qaeda Leader) Kind

The WaPo has an interactive timeline of U.S. drone attacks on high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda targets since Obama took office. There were only two such attacks during 2009, but there have been five so far this year. Expect many more.

Another al-Qaeda #3 Bites the Dust

The WaPo is reporting that yet another AQ #3 leader has gone down.

A U.S. official [in Pakistan] said there is "strong reason" to believe that Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, known as Sheik Saeed al-Masri, was killed, apparently by a CIA drone strike in Pakistan's tribal belt within the past two weeks.

Since they appear to have an inexhaustible supply of Number 3 men, this won't be the end of al-Qaeda, and maybe not even the beginning of the end. But at least our Predator drones are keeping AQ on the run.

Hard to Kill (I Mean al-Qaeda, Not the Steven Seagal Movie)

I posted something a few days ago about the apparent futility of leadership decapitation as a strategy against al-Qaeda, or most other kinds of terrorist groups. AQ has experienced a brisk turnover in its middle management ranks - thanks to Predator drones - but those losses have had little evident effect on its organizational coherence.

Along those lines, here's a report from Jane's Strategic Advisory Services about al-Qaeda and the adaptability of its command and control structure.

Al Qaeda Documents Found in Taliban Compound

This is a significant find, if it is verified. The UK Guardian, among other news outlets, is reporting that Pakistani troops have discovered passports belonging to al Qaeda figures in a Taliban compound in South Waziristan.

Some quotes from The Guardian's story, Al-Qaida connection: Foreign passports linked to attacks on west recovered:

Pakistani troops sweeping through the mountains of South Waziristan have discovered startling evidence that appears to show a direct link between the lawless tribal belt and al-Qaida attacks in America and Europe.

Last week soldiers raiding Taliban compounds in Shelwasti village, on the edge of the Mehsud tribal territory, recovered a passport in the name of Said Bahaji, a German national accused of being part of the Hamburg cell that coordinated the September 11 2001 attacks.

They also found a Spanish passport in the name of Raquel Burgos García, whose Moroccan husband, Amer Azizi, is accused of playing a role in the Madrid train bombings of 2004.

-- snip --

If authenticated, the documents provide stark proof of what western allies have insisted upon for years, but which Pakistani officials have only recently accepted – that the tribal belt, particularly South and North Waziristan, is the de facto headquarters of al-Qaida, and that Osama bin Laden is most likely hiding there.

Ex-Gitmo Detainee and Rehab Dropout Killed In Saudi Arabia

A Saudi radical and al Qaeda operative whom we released from Gitmo in 2007 was killed last week in a firefight with Saudi security forces, the Christian Science Monitor reported today:

Two Yemen-based militants dressed as women, one of whom was a former Guantánamo prisoner, were intercepted at a Saudi checkpoint last week.

-- snip --

The two fighters discovered last week, Rayed Abdullahi al-Harbi and Yousef Mohammed al-Shihri, were both on a Saudi government most-wanted list issued in February. Al Shihri is a former Guantanamo detainee, and the brother-in-law of Saeed al-Shihri, the Yemen-based deputy commander of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who also was at Guantánamo, spokesman Turki said.

The Long War Journal provided some background on al Shahri:

One of the names on the Saudi most-wanted list that matches the list of Saudis repatriated from Guantánamo is Yousuf Mohammed Mubarak Al Jubairi Al Shahri. In the U.S. government's files, one of the repatriated detainee's names is given as Yussef Mohammed Mubarak al Shihri. Yussef allegedly traveled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan using al Qaeda's Mashhad transit hub. Once in Afghanistan, he was allegedly trained at the notorious al Farouq camp and fought against the Northern Alliance. Yussef's brother is a "known al Qaeda operative."

If the Yussef Mohammed Mubarak al Shihri identified in the U.S. government's files is the same man who is now one of Saudi Arabia's most-wanted, it is no surprise that he returned to the fight. The U.S. government identified Yussef as a hardcore ideologue who "hates all Americans because they attack his religion." The U.S. government's unclassified files note: "Since Americans are his enemy, he will continue to fight them until he dies."

Yussef al Shihri was one of the "kids of Guantanamo" - teenage battlefield detainees who were held in a separate facility apart from the rest of the Gitmo Gang - and his case received quite a bit of sympathy from the usual quarters.

According to Saudi news accounts:

Al-Shiri was transferred from Guantánamo to Saudi Arabia in 2007. He was immediately put into the Ministry of Interior’s hugely successful rehabilitation program for arrested extremists.

Two years after entering the program, al Shihri had fled to Yemen where he reconnected with his al Qaeda associates, and last week he was sneaking back into the Kingdom bearing four suicide bomb vests when he was intercepted.

That "hugely successful rehabilitation program" still has some kinks to work out, obviously. Perhaps now the Obama administration will have seconds thought about trying to palm off our Yemeni detainees on the Kingdom.

Najibullah Zazi Was in Touch With al Qaeda's #2

Details now emerging in the case of Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan immigrant who has been charged with plotting to bomb targets in New York City, suggest that young Mr. Zazi was more than just another run-of-the-mill Jihobbyist caught in an FBI sting. He was in contact with one of al Qaeda's heavy hitters.

The Washington Times reports today:

The airport shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with al Qaeda that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant thought to be the terrorist group's leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told the Associated Press.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as the 24-year-old man hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city's mass-transit system, the two intelligence officials said.

-- snip --

Al-Yazid's contact with Mr. Zazi indicates that al Qaeda leadership took an intense interest in what U.S. officials have called one of the most serious terrorism threats crafted on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Zazi working with the al Qaeda core is exceptionally alarming," said Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center. "The al Qaeda core is capable of far more effective terrorist attacks than jihadist terrorists acting on their own, and coordination with the core also enables bin Laden to choose the timing to maximize the benefit to his organization."

-- snip --

Al-Yazid, 53, also known as Abu Saeed al-Masri and Sheikh Said, is a well-known al Qaeda figure who initially disagreed with bin Laden's Sept. 11 plot, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Al-Yazid was known at the time of the attack as head of al Qaeda's finance committee.

-- snip --

A member of Egypt's radical Islamist movement, al-Yazid took part in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, according to "In the Graveyard of Empires," a book by counterterrorism expert Seth G. Jones. He spent three years in prison, where he joined Ayman al-Zawahri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Mr. Jones wrote. Al-Zawahri is considered al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, behind bin Laden.

Interesting that Zazi was an airport shuttle driver in Denver. That seems to be increasingly a foreign-dominated job field. I was in Denver a week ago, and I had Somali immigrant drivers on the airport Super Shuttle for both my arrival and departure days. What's more, all of their radio and cell phone chatter with other drivers was in what I assume was the Somali language. Is this another one of those jobs Americans won't do?