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Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: A Primer

2010-01-03

On a February morning in 2006, as Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, was jolted awake by the calls to prayer from the city's mosques, 23 Yemeni prisoners crawled their way to freedom. They had spent weeks patiently digging a 140-foot tunnel that would extend from their basement prison cell to a nearby mosque. Among the escapees were Jamal al-Badawi, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors, and Jaber al-Banna, a Yemeni with U.S. citizenship who was counted among the FBI's 26 most wanted. There was widespread speculation that the men had help from both inside the prison and out, only fueling fears about Yemen's revolving doors of justice. It wasn't the first time al-Badawi had escaped. President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government vowed swift action, and while almost all of the prisoners, including al-Badawi and al-Banna, were later recaptured or killed, two of the lesser-known escapees eluded authorities. Those men, Qasim al-Raimi and Nasser al-Wahishi, a 33-year-old former jihadist who fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, disappeared into the largely autonomous tribal region outside Sana'a. In the four years since, they have helped build what is known today as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, the Yemen-based group which was thrust into the spotlight following the botched Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger jet. Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab claims that he received training and the explosives used in the attempted attack from the group during his travels to Yemen. Though it may seem that AQAP has suddenly emerged as Al Qaeda's newest and most virulent branch, the organization has increasingly been demanding the attention of intelligence agencies. "The group's growing ambition and increasing strength really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention," says Princeton's Gregory Johnsen, one of the U.S.'s foremost experts on Yemen. "Just because people in the West haven't been focused on Yemen, doesn't mean Al Qaeda has not been active there." In August, the group narrowly failed to assassinate Saudi Arabia's security chief, in a plot bearing similarities to the Christmas Day attack. The 23-year-old suicide bomber was on a Saudi most wanted list but managed to persuade officials that he was ready to repent and surrender directly to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. He was even brought to see Nayef aboard the prince's private plane, apparently concealing the bomb in his rectum. The bomber was the only one killed when the explosives were detonated (reportedly by a cell phone, but accounts of the attack have varied). He did, however, manage to get close enough to injure Nayef in the blast. Yemen has had a long and complicated relationship with Al Qaeda, stemming back to the late 1980s when Arab veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan were welcomed back as heroes. In the conservative country, where bin Laden remains a popular figure, Saleh's government has always understood the importance of cooperating with Islamic leaders, and keeping the Arab-Afghan jihadists close. In 1994, four years after Saleh was proclaimed the president of the newly unified north and south, many of those fighters were dispatched to stop a southern attempt to separate. President Saleh was, however, among the first foreign leaders to pledge his support to the Bush administration following the 9/11 attacks--a position he made clear during a November 2001 visit to Washington. A year later, an unmanned CIA drone killed the head of Yemen's Al Qaeda branch. Shortly thereafter, his replacement was arrested. While Saleh paid a high price at home for allowing the U.S. strike, the loss of the group's leaders, in addition to the war in Iraq that attracted hundreds of Yemeni jihadists, made it appear in 2003 as if Al Qaeda had been largely defeated in the country. But three years later, al-Wahishi took advantage of the lapsed vigilance by the American and Yemeni forces and built his group. As Saleh's government tried to quell a northern insurgency and a secession movement in the south (still regarded in Yemen as far greater threats to the country's stability than Al Qaeda), al-Wahishi's group waged attacks on local oil and gas facilities. In June 2007, a suicide bomber targeted Spanish tourists, and six months later two Belgians were killed when gunmen ambushed their vehicles. A series of other strikes followed, culminating in the September 2008 suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Sana'a that killed 18, including the six assailants. Meanwhile, Saudi fighters were increasingly bolstering the group's ranks, since many had fled south across the border following Saudi Arabia's heavy-handed crackdown on extremists. The Saudi and Yemeni branches of Al Qaeda made their "merger" official in January, adopting the name Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A January 23 video broadcast on an Al Qaeda website identified the new Saudi leaders as Said Ali al-Shihri, a 35-year-old former Guantanamo Bay detainee who had been released in November 2007, and Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi, identified on the video as Guantanamo detainee 333. Embarrassingly for both Saudi Arabia and the U.S., due to past praise of the Kingdom's handling of Al Qaeda, the AQAP leaders had both participated in the well-funded Saudi rehabilitation program. Though al-Awfi surrendered to Saudi authorities a month later, al-Shihri is still an important figure within the group. AQAP represents what many consider Yemen's second generation of Al Qaeda--and while the group may have ties to "Al Qaeda central," the organization appears to act independently. Counterterrorism officials believe AQAP has learned from its recent past and built an organization that can withstand the loss of its leadership. Savvy in delivering its message, the group even has its own magazine, Salah al Malahim (The Echo of Battle), which covers everything from biographies of suicide bombers to advice columns on how to become an Al Qaeda foot soldier. Reports on AQAP's membership vary widely, with some Yemeni security experts saying they number no more than 50, while others believe there are more than 200 operatives in the country. Most of their goals still seem to remain local, as reflected in their statement following the Christmas Day attack that warned all non-Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula that they were at risk. President Saleh faces huge challenges. He continues to struggle with crushing domestic woes, and he's simultaneously trying to attain a diplomatic balance between supporting the U.S.'s demands for action without appearing to be a puppet. His government also has limited influence in the tribal areas outside of Sana'a where AQAP has set up its base. Yemen's foreign affairs minister said he feared that situation wouldn't change until Yemenis stopped turning to their tribal leaders to provide what the government cannot. "Yemen cannot really build a modern state unless we re-define the role of government," Abu Baker al-Qirbi argued when we talked in his office this summer about the rise of AQAP. "If one spends a fraction of the money that is spent on combating terrorism, on how to rehabilitate and how to address some of the issues that lead to extremism--education and poverty--maybe we would have achieved a greater success in fighting terrorism."

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Saudi jihad therapy fails to live up to claims

2010-01-02

A cushy Saudi Arabian "rehab" center where terrorists are encouraged to express themselves through crayon drawings, water sports and video games is under scrutiny after one of its graduates re-emerged as a leader in the al Qaeda branch claiming responsibility for trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas. Said Ali al Shihri -- a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who now heads the terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- obviously didn't get to the bottom of his America-hating issues while undergoing the controversial rehab for jihadists. Inmates like Shihri are supposed to while away the days playing ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer in hopes that the peaceful environment will help them cope with their jihadist rages. Bomb-makers and gunmen participate in art therapy to help them explore their feelings non-violently. In between tasty picnic-style meals of rice and lamb and snacks of Snickers along with dips in the pool, participants practice Arabic calligraphy, produce dizzying Jackson Pollack rip-offs and imagine the aftermath of car bombings in crayon. Some 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists have "graduated" from the program, including 108 former Guantanamo Bay detainees, the Washington Post reported. "The Saudis talk about a success rate of 80 to 90 percent, but when you look at what those numbers mean in reality, it all falls down. There is no criteria for evaluation," John Horgan, a Department of Homeland Security consultant, told the New York Post. In 2009, Horgan visited several of the Saudi terrorism rehab centers to report on the programs for Homeland Security. "These guys are not being de-radicalized. They are being encouraged to disassociate from terrorism, but that doesn't mean their fundamental views changed," said Horgan, director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State. The Saudis launched the programs after the kingdom was rocked by a series of al Qaeda-inspired attacks in 2003 and 2004. But despite the Saudi government's best efforts, which also include setting up graduates with jobs, introductions to potential wives and new cars, many of the terrorists don't seem to be getting the peace message. "Several 'returnees' from Guantanamo Bay continue to espouse a virulent hatred of the United States and Western society in general," Horgan wrote in a September report. That includes Shihri, who has been busy ignoring the peaceful precepts he was taught in terror rehab and has resumed his hardcore jihadist ways. Shihri is a top member of the al Qaeda branch in Yemen which claims to have masterminded the failed plot to blow up Flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day. He also is suspected of coordinating the 2008 bombing of the US embassy in Yemen, ABC reported. Another former Gitmo detainee, Muhammad al Awfi, who went back to al Qaeda after his release, has ridiculed the Saudi efforts to rehabilitate jihadists as a plan to "drive us away from Islam." Shihri -- who was released from Guantanamo Bay by President George W. Bush in 2007 -- spent six to ten weeks at the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Care and Counseling, ABC News reported. "There are guards and gates and barbed wire but it's not quite prison," Christopher Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has visited the center, told ABC. "It's a communal living environment that's more like 'Hogan's Heroes' than 'Escape From Alcatraz.' " A team of shrinks works with the inmates in managing their emotions, and they are given lessons in Islam from imams, who warn them that jihad is only acceptable when sanctioned by the state. Toward the end of their stint, some inmates are allowed to make unescorted visits to family members. "Some American officials say it's all about crayons and art therapy, but the things that don't translate are the intense emotional and intellectual strides that are made," Boucek told ABC. "They make intense bonds with the sheiks and doctors they work with. The majority is a religious discussion giving them religious evidence to the contrary of why they think their beliefs are based on Islam."

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Abdulmutallab trained by ex-Gitmo prisoner

2009-12-30

I think we knew this but I'm posting this to ensure that we connect all the dots. WASHINGTON: At least one leader of al-Qa'ida's branch in Yemen, where the failed bomber of a US-bound Christmas flight was allegedly trained, was freed from the US prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, a Pentagon list reveals. The list, released in May, names 27 former prisoners who resumed terrorist activities after being released from Guantanamo, including Said Ali al-Shihri, who was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and later implicated in the bombing of the US embassy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, last year. ABC television named Muhammad Attik al-Harbi, a former al-Qa'ida leader in Yemen, as another unrepentant former Guantanamo prisoner. Yemen's role as an al-Qa'ida haven has come under renewed public scrutiny in the wake of a Nigerian man's alleged attempt to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airline plane as it approached to land in Detroit on Friday. US law enforcement official have said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, confessed to receiving specific training for the attack from an al-Qa'ida bombmaker in Yemen. An al-Qa'ida affiliate in the Arabian peninsula claimed yesterday that it was behind the failed bombing, and threatened new attacks on the West, US monitoring groups said. The two-page statement, which was accompanied by a picture of Abdulmutallab, boasted that the "Nigerian brother . . . was able to breach all the modern and sophisticated technologies and checkpoints at the airports around the world". The US government remains cautious in linking the suspect to al-Qa'ida, which has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. It has strengthened its presence in Yemen by exploiting the loose control of the central government over the heavily tribalised provinces.

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Yemen strike thought to have killed Aulaqi, 2 al-Qaeda leaders

2009-12-25

Yemeni forces, backed by the United States, launched a major attack Thursday on a meeting of senior al-Qaeda operatives thought to include the Yemeni American cleric linked to the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings, U.S. and Yemeni officials said. U.S. officials believe that the cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was probably killed in the assault, as were two al-Qaeda leaders, according to a senior Obama administration official. One of those leaders was the head of the terrorist network's operations on the Arabian Peninsula and once served as Osama bin Laden's personal secretary; the other was a Saudi national and former detainee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yemeni officials, tribal leaders and eyewitnesses said it was not clear whether Aulaqi and the al-Qaeda leaders were killed or wounded in the strike. They cautioned that it could take days for authorities to identify the dead. Still, the U.S. involvement in the strike in southeastern Yemen -- along with a similar strike in the country last week -- appears to reflect greater willingness by the Obama administration to use military force in confronting terrorists outside the traditional war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Last week's strike was seen at the time as the most significant example of the new approach, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the planning and execution of the attack. It was not clear whether U.S. firepower was employed in either attack. A U.S. official said the United States did provide intelligence and other support. The Thursday assault killed at least 30 suspected militants, according to Yemeni security and government sources. In a statement, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said Aulaqi was thought to be at the meeting, as were Nasser al-Wuhayshi, al-Qaeda's regional leader, and his deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri. A U.S. official identified the two al-Qaeda leaders as "the two biggest fish in the most violent offshoot of al-Qaeda that exists in the world." "This is a decapitating strike on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record. U.S. officials said Aulaqi was a member of al-Qaeda and has been moving up the ranks, having recently been promoted to regional commander. But the officials described him less as an operational leader than an inspirational one, whose contacts with members took place largely online. The Yemen Observer, a paper with ties to the government, reported that Aulaqi's house was "raided and demolished" in Thursday's strike. But in interviews, Aulaqi's distraught relatives said they have had no official word about the cleric. They said they had spoken with relatives and friends in Shabwa province, the site of the assault, and do not believe that he was among those killed. The cleric's father, a former Yemeni minister of agriculture, Nasser al-Aulaqi, said his son was living in the home of an uncle and, he believed, had left that residence about two months ago. The uncle's house is more than 40 miles from the attack site, the elder Aulaqi said in a rare interview. "If the American government helped in attacking one of [its own] citizens, this is illegal," the father said, his voice cracking. "Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and he's going to get a trial. My son has killed nobody. He should face trial if he's done something wrong." "If Obama wants to kill my son, this is wrong," he said, adding that despite his son's ideology, the younger Aulaqi had no links to al-Qaeda. Shabwa is a known haven for al-Qaeda militants. Yemeni security and government sources said the dead in Thursday's attack included suspected al-Qaeda members of Yemeni and foreign nationalities, but they would not elaborate. Al-Qaeda here is made up largely of Yemeni and Saudi nationals, according to analysts. Tribal leaders and eyewitnesses said they buried five al-Qaeda operatives after the assault. Lahmar bin Salfooh, a tribal chief, said all five were from Aulaqi's tribe, which dominates Shabwa province. In the Fallujah Forum, an online discussion forum for al-Qaeda sympathizers in Yemen, participants said Shabwa residents had noticed yellow-and-green military-style spotter balloons floating above the area in the three days before the strike, said Evan F. Kohlmann, a terrorism expert and researcher for the Nine/Eleven Finding Answers Foundation. That might have warned Aulaqi and the al-Qaeda leaders at the meeting. "This may have given these guys the sense that something was going on," Kohlmann said.

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Former Gitmo detainee now al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula's Mufti

2009-12-04

A former Guantanamo detainee has emerged as a leading ideologue and theologian for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- one of the strongest al Qaeda affiliates in the world. Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish was captured by Pakistani authorities in late 2001 and then handed over to American officials who transferred him to Guantanamo. Rubaish was held until Dec. 13, 2006, when he was transferred to Saudi Arabia and placed in the Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists. At some point, Rubaish escaped from Saudi Arabia by fleeing south to Yemen. Rubaish was held there until Dec. 13, 2006, when he was transferred to Saudi Arabia and placed in the Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists. At some point, Rubaish escaped from Saudi Arabia by fleeing south to Yemen. In February 2009, the Saudi Kingdom placed Rubaish, along with at least 10 other former Gitmo detainees, on its list of 85 most-wanted terrorists. One of the former Gitmo detainees Rubaish fled to Yemen with, Said Ali al Shihri, is now the deputy of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which was formed when the al Qaeda branches in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged. Two other former Gitmo detainees who fled to Yemen along with Rubaish have been killed in shootouts. Since leaving Saudi Arabia, Rubaish has become an influential proponent of waging jihad against the Saudi royals. Rubaish's influence is so great that he has risen to the rank of Mufti within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to an analysis by the Jamestown Foundation. The role of Mufti is crucial for al Qaeda's operations because the Mufti provides the theological justifications for the organization's terrorism. The Saudi regime has consistently challenged the religious credentials of al Qaeda's Muftis since 2003, when the kingdom launched a widespread crackdown on the terrorist network in response to attacks on Saudi interests. Rubaish is now the terrorist leader responsible for providing al Qaeda's answer to the Saudi regime's theological arguments. Much more at link

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1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds

2009-05-21

WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report provides new details concluding that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials. This isn't as helpful in the debate as it seems. The Bambi administration leaks this now on top of the Senate vote, lets it go away into the collective memory hole, and tries again later this year to get the money to close Gitmo. The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against releasing any more prisoners as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January 2010. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism, however, have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail. The Pentagon believes that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent. The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.” Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo. The White House has said that Mr. Obama will provide further details about his plans for closing the prison there in a speech Thursday morning at the National Archives. Pentagon officials said there had been no pressure from the White House to suppress the report, and said they believed that the Defense Department employees, some of them holdovers from the Bush administration, were acting pre-emptively to protect their jobs. Ah yes, the evil Bushies are at it again. Perhaps they're Cheney plants? The report is the subject of numerous Freedom of Information Act requests from news media organizations, and Mr. Whitman said that he expected it to be released shortly. The report, a copy of which was made available to The New York Times, says the Pentagon believes that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent. Previous assertions by the Pentagon that substantial numbers of former Guantánamo prisoners had returned to terrorism were harshly criticized by civil liberties and human rights groups who said the information was too vague to be credible and amounted to propaganda in favor of keeping the prison open. The Pentagon began making these assertions in 2007 but stopped earlier this year, shortly before Mr. Obama took office. In recent days, the Pentagon has run into rising objections in Congress to closing the prison, particularly from Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, who said recently that Guantánamo detainees would “never” be released in the United States. On Wednesday, Michele A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, reminded reporters that many of these now expressing reservations about the transfer of prisoners from Guantánamo had also called for the closing it. “I think there will be some that need to end up in the United States,” she said. Among the 74 former prisoners that the report says are again engaged in terrorism, 29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report. The Pentagon has said that the remaining 45 could not be named because of national security and intelligence-gathering concerns. In the report, the Pentagon confirmed that two former Guantánamo prisoners whose terrorist activities had been previously reported had indeed returned to the fight. They are Said Ali al-Shihri, a leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch suspected in a deadly bombing of the United States embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, last year, and Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, an Afghan Taliban commander, who also goes by the name Mullah Abdullah Zakir. The Pentagon has so far provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people who are identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided. “It’s part of a campaign to win the hearts and minds of history for Guantánamo,” said Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who has represented Guantánamo detainees and co-written three studies highly critical of the Pentagon’s previous recidivism reports. “They want to be able to claim there really were bad people there.” Take them home with you, Mr. Denbeaux, and let's see what happens.

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Obama Tells Arabia's Despots They're Safe

2009-01-28

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect," President Barack Obama said in his inaugural. But in truth, the new way forward is a return to realpolitik and business as usual in America's encounter with that Greater Middle East. As the president told Al-Arabiya television Monday, he wants a return to "the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago." Say what you will about the style -- and practice -- of the Bush years, the autocracies were on notice for the first five or six years of George. W. Bush's presidency. America had toppled Taliban rule and the tyranny of Saddam Hussein; it had frightened the Libyan ruler that a similar fate lay in store for him. It was not sweet persuasion that drove Syria out of Lebanon in 2005. That dominion of plunder and terror was given up under duress. True, Mr. Bush's diplomacy of freedom fizzled out in the last two years of his presidency, and the autocracies in the Greater Middle East came to a conviction that the storm had passed them by and that they had been spared. But we are still too close to this history to see how the demonstration effect works its way through Arab political culture. The argument that liberty springs from within and can't be given to distant peoples is more flawed than meets the eye. In the sweep of modern history, the fortunes of liberty have been dependent on the will of the dominant power -- or powers -- in the order of states. The late Samuel P. Huntington made this point with telling detail. In 15 of the 29 democratic countries in 1970, democratic regimes were midwifed by foreign rule or had come into being right after independence from foreign occupation. In the ebb and flow of liberty, power always mattered, and liberty needed the protection of great powers. The appeal of the pamphlets of Mill and Locke and Paine relied on the guns of Pax Britannica, and on the might of America when British power gave way. In this vein, the assertive diplomacy of George W. Bush had given heart to Muslims long in the grip of tyrannies. Take that image of Saddam Hussein, flushed out of his spider hole some five years ago: Americans may have edited it out of their memory, but it shall endure for a long time in Arab consciousness. Rulers can be toppled and brought to account. No wonder the neighboring dictatorships bristled at the sight of that capture, and at his execution three years later. The irony now is obvious: George W. Bush as a force for emancipation in Muslim lands, and Barack Hussein Obama as a messenger of the old, settled ways. Thus the "parochial" man takes abroad a message that Muslims and Arabs did not have tyranny in their DNA, and the man with Muslim and Kenyan and Indonesian fragments in his very life and identity is signaling an acceptance of the established order. Mr. Obama could still acknowledge the revolutionary impact of his predecessor's diplomacy, but so far he has chosen not to do so. The brief reference to Iraq in the inaugural could not have been icier or more clipped. "We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people," Mr. Obama said. Granted, Iraq was not his cause, but a project that has taken so much American toil and sacrifice, that has laid the foundations of a binational (Arab and Kurdish) state in the very heart of an Arab world otherwise given to a despotic political tradition, surely could have elicited a word or two of praise. In his desire to be the "un-Bush," the new president fell back on an austere view of freedom's possibilities. The foreign world would be kept at an emotional and cultural distance. Even Afghanistan -- the good war that the new administration has accepted as its burden -- evoked no soaring poetry, just the promise of forging "a hard-earned peace." The nation had cast a vote for a new way, and had gotten the foreign policy of Brent Scowcroft. Where Mr. Bush had seen the connection between the autocratic ways in Muslim lands and the culture of terror that infected the young foot soldiers of radicalism, Mr. Obama seems ready to split the difference with their rulers. His embrace of the "peace process" is a return to the sterile diplomacy of the Clinton years, with its belief that the terror is rooted in the grievances of the Palestinians. Mr. Obama and his advisers have refrained from asserting that terrorism has passed from the scene, but there is an unmistakable message conveyed by them that we can return to our own affairs, that Wall Street is more deadly and dangerous than that fabled "Arab-Muslim Street." Thus far the political genius of Mr. Obama has been his intuitive feel for the mood of this country. He bet that the country was ready for his brand of postracial politics, and he was vindicated. More timid souls counseled that he should wait and bide his time, but the electorate responded to him. I suspect that he is on the mark in his reading of America's fatigue and disillusionment with foreign causes and foreign places. That is why Osama bin Laden's recent call for a "financial jihad" against America seemed so beside the point; the work of destruction has been done by our own investment wizards and politicians. But foreign challengers and rogue regimes are under no obligation to accommodate our mood and our needs. They are not hanging onto news of our financial crisis, they are not mesmerized by the fluctuations of the Dow. I know it is a cliché, but sooner or later, we shall be hearing from them. They will strip us of our illusions and our (new) parochialism. A dispatch from the Arabian Peninsula bears this out. It was learned, right in the midst of the news cycle announcing that Mr. Obama has ordered that Guantanamo be shut down in a year's time, that a Saudi by the name of Said Ali al-Shihri -- who had been released from that prison in 2007 to his homeland -- had made his way to Yemen and had risen in the terror world of that anarchic country. It had been a brief stop in Saudi Arabia for Guantanamo detainee No. 372: He had gone through a "rehabilitation" program there, then slipped across the border to Yemen, where he may have been involved in a terror attack on the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital in September of last year. This war was never a unilateral American war to be called off by an American calendar. The enemy, too, has a vote in how this struggle between American power and radical Islamism plays out in the years to come. In another time, the fabled era of Bill Clinton's peace and prosperity, we were mesmerized by the Nasdaq. In the watering hole of Davos, in the heights of the Alps, gurus confident of a new age of commerce pronounced the end of ideology and politics. But in the forbidding mountains of the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, a breed of jihadists that paid no heed to that mood of economic triumphalism was plotting for us an entirely different future. Here we are again, this time led by our economic distress, demanding that the world abide by our own reading of historical challenges. We have not discovered that "sweet spot" where our economic fortunes intersect with the demands and challenges of an uncertain world. Mr. Ajami is professor of Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. He is also an adjunct research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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"Rehabbed" Islamic militants arrested in Saudi Arabia

2009-01-27

Everybody that's been cured, take one step forward. Not so fast, Mahmoud... Nine Saudi Islamic militants, including former Guantanamo inmates, have been rearrested in the Kingdom despite completing a controversial rehabilitation programme. Geez, one guy screws up and everybody pays. Oh, well. Insh Allah, boys... The arrests follow the embarrassing revelation last week that another Saudi Guantanamo Bay detainee who was released to the authorities in 2007 has emerged as the deputy leader of al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch of the terrorist organisation. Awwww, geez. Looks like the "repentence" thing just ain't working out, huh, boys... ... depends on your point of view ... Both incidents are a serious setback for the experimental regime in which Saudi terror suspects are "weaned off" Islamic militancy at the so-called "Betty Ford clinic" for jihadists. I can see! I CAN SEE!! The rearrest of nine Saudi militants has also underlined the dilemma now facing governments with nationals still being detained in Guantanamo Bay, following President Obama's decision to close the camp. He has called on other countries to take detainees to help clear out the controversial prison. Maybe they ought to tell him to change his mind... European foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today to discuss ways of responding to the US President's request. Jean Asselborn, the Foreign Minister of Luzembourg, said: "The EU is not politically responsible for Guantanamo, it was an American decision and they have to take responsibility, but the EU must help people who were jailed, from a humanitarian point of view." Yep, the EU has it's priorities. How about we drop em all in Luxembourg? Maybe in Jean's neighborhood? At the Saudi rehabilitation centre, inmates selected for reform have access to a swimming pool, table tennis and PlayStations. They even play football with their guards. Wow. Just like "The Longest Yard"... During the programme, the militants have to attend lessons based on Islamic law which shuns the use of violence. A team of psychologists instruct them how to manage their emotions when seeing images on television of Muslims suffering in war situations. I wonder if they pin their eyes open and use the Wagner and the strobes? My bet?..................Nah. The Saudi authorities claimed that none of the militants who had been sent to the centre on the outskirts of Riyadh had returned to terrorism. Except for...that guy. The Pentagon claims that dozens of released Guantanamo detainees have "returned to the fight". ...and those guys. Maybe. Said Ali al-Shihri was suspected of being involved in the bombing of the US Embassy in Sana, Yemen's capital, in September last year. He had also been through the Saudi rehabilitation programme. He said he was cured. Did the fingerpaints and colored inside the lines and...everything. How were we to know? He and another Saudi national with al-Qaeda links had travelled to Yemen after completing the programme. Both men have appeared on a jihadist website. On the video, al-Shihri is seen sitting with three other men before a flag for al-Qaeda in Iraq. "By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for," al-Shihri said. Hmmmmmmmmmm...don't think that's what our Saudi friends were going for. Saudi Arabia has also built five jails, each housing 1,200 jihadist prisoners, who are given religious instruction. But the prisons hold senior al-Qaeda leaders and they have to endure maximum security conditions. What's that? No room service?

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Arabia

Freed by U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief

2009-01-23

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official. “They’re one and the same guy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. “He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear.” The development came as Republican legislators criticized the plan to close the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with current detainees. But it also helps explain why the new administration wants to move cautiously, taking time to work out a plan to cope with the complications. Almost half the camp’s remaining detainees are Yemenis, and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program — partly financed by the United States — similar to the Saudi one. Saudi Arabia has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.

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