Mohammed Atef | Mohammed Atef | al-Qaeda | Middle East | 20040204 | |||||
Mohammed Atef | al-Qaeda | Afghanistan | Egyptian | Deceased | Key Aide | 20030914 | |||
Bin Laden's #3 |
Terror Networks |
Iran-based trainer of 9/11 hijackers Sayf al-‘Adl believed to be new al-Qaeda chief |
2023-02-15 |
[IsraelTmes] Though successor to Ayman al-Zawahri not officially announced by terror group, most UN member states say commander is its ’uncontested leader’ UN experts say the predominant view among member nations is that the leadership of al-Qaeda has passed to Sayf al-’Adl, who was responsible for the late Osama bin Laden ...... who used to be alive but now he's not...... ’s security and trained some of the hijackers involved in the 9/11 attack on the US. The panel of experts said in a report to the UN Security Council circulated Monday that no announcement has been made of Sayf al-’Adl replacing Ayman al-Zawahri, who was killed by a US dronezap in Kabul last August. "But in discussions in November and December many UN member states took the view that Sayf al-’Adl is already operating as the de facto and uncontested leader of the group," the report said. Assessments vary as to why al-’Adl’s leadership hasn’t been declared, it said. Some countries feel that al-Zawahri’s presence in Kabul embarrassed the country’s Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... rulers who are seeking legitimacy "and that al-Qaeda chose not to exacerbate this by acknowledging the death," the experts said. "However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... most judged a key factor to be the continued presence of Sayf al-’Adl in the Islamic Theocratic Republicof Iran (which) raised difficult theological and operational questions for al-Qaeda," they said. While noting that one country rejected claims that any al-Qaeda affiliate is in Iran, the panel said that the location of Sayf al-’Adl’a "raises questions that have a bearing on al-Qaeda’s ambitions to assert leadership of a global movement in the face of challenges" from the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... murderous Moslem group. Sayf al-’Adl has been listed on the UN sanctions blacklist as Egyptian-born Mohammed Salahaldin Abd El Halim Zidan since January 2001, the panel said. He is described in the UN listing as taking over as military commander of al-Qaeda following the death of Mohammed Atef — one of bin Laden’s top aides — in a US attack in November 2001. In addition to being bin Laden’s security chief, the UN says, Sayf al-’Adl taught bully boyz to use explosives and trained some of the hijackers involved in the attack in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. It says he also trained Somali fighters who killed 18 US servicemen in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. Sayf al-’Adl is wanted by US authorities in connection with the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. According to the report, the threat from al-Qaeda, the Islamic State murderous Moslem group, and their affiliates "remains high in conflict zones and neighboring countries," with Africa emerging in recent years "as the continent where the harm done by terrorism is developing most rapidly and extensively." The panel said the Islamic State’s leadership has also become a question following the group’s Nov. 30 announcement that Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi had died in a battle the previous month, the group’s second leader to be killed in 2022. "The new leader was announced as Abu al-Husain al-Husaini al-Qurashi, and his true identity is not yet known," the experts said. Member states noted numerous pledges of allegiance to Abu al-Husain by Islamic State "affiliates far and wide without specific knowledge of his identity or qualities as a leader," they said. According to the Egyptian authorities, the FBI information on Saif al-Adel confuses the biographies of two members of Al-Qaeda. The first, 'Mohammed Salah al-Din Zaidan', known as Saif al-Adel, an economy graduate, joined Al-Qaeda in 1991, but was never a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The other individual, 'Mohammed Ibrahim Makkawi', is a former Egyptian Special Forces Colonel and a former member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who traveled to Afghanistan in 1987 after his release from prison, and later joined Al-Qaeda. According to the indictment, Adel is a member of the majlis al shura of al-Qaeda and a member of its military committee. He has provided military and intelligence training to members of al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan, and to anti-UN Somali tribes.[5] It is possible that his trainees included the Somalis of the first Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.[6] He established the al-Qaeda training facility at Ras Kamboni in Somalia near the Kenyan border.[7] Adel was accused of being involved with Egyptian Islamic Jihad and attempting to overthrow the Egyptian government in 1987. After the charges were dismissed, he left the country in 1988 to join the mujahideen in repelling the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.[8] He is believed to have traveled to southern Lebanon along with Abu Talha al-Sudani, Saif al-Islam al-Masri, Abu Ja`far al-Masri, and Abu Salim al-Masri, where he trained alongside Hezbollah Al-Hejaz.[9] In Khartoum, Sudan, Adel taught recruited militants how to handle explosives.[4] Along with Saeed al-Masri and Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, he is believed to have opposed the September 11 attacks two months prior to their execution.[10] Many analysts believe that Saif al-Adel will be named as the successor of Ayman al-Zawahiri since he was a loyal aide of Osama bin Laden.[11] However, this is seen as a complicated issue due to his residency in Iran.[12] |
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Southeast Asia |
Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist disappears |
2014-04-26 |
Agus Dwikarna was a Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) operative who, according to the UN, guided al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri on a trip to Aceh. This alleged Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist from Sulawesi disappeared just days after coming home from the Philippines, where he had been imprisoned since 2002 on charges of possessing illegal explosives. He returned in early January and spent a few days at his home in Makassar, but his whereabouts since are unknown, Indonesian officials say. Agus was serving a 17-year sentence when the Philippines deported him to Indonesia. The Philippines convicted him twelve years ago for trying to board a flight to Bangkok from Manila with C-4 plastic explosives and bomb parts in his possession. Though Agus denied those charges, he had an extensive history of involvement in terrorist activities, according to the UN. In September 2003, the UN's Security Council Committee listed him among people with alleged ties to al-Qaeda and direct involvement with the terror group's most senior leaders. Until his 2002 arrest in Manila, Agus was "a major figure" of Laskar Jundullah in Makassar, military wing of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (MMI). He also worked as a regional head of the Indonesian branch of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which funnelled al-Qaeda money into the region and gave its operatives cover as charity workers. According to reports, apart from running a Sulawesi training camp, Agus escorted two of al-Qaeda's top leaders on a tour of Aceh Province: Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef, head of al-Qaeda's military wing, who has since been killed. According to the UN, the two al-Qaeda leaders visited Aceh in June 2002, but other sources date their trip to June 2000. |
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
Iran-held bin Laden family seek a host country |
2010-07-19 |
[Al Arabiya Latest] Al-Qaeda leader's fourth-born son Omar bin Laden in an interview with Al Arabiya TV said Iran offered to turn over about 20 members of his family it has held for eight years to a third country other than Saudi Arabia. "I think the time has come for my family members to leave Iran but their lack of identification papers and passports made us in need of another third-party country willing to receive them after Iran refused to hand them over to Saudi Arabia, " Omar said. "Othman (his brother held in Tehran) called me by phone four days ago and asked me to find a country to mediate their release and accept to receive them," he added. Omar said that neither the United States nor any other country has accused any of his brothers of terrorism, adding that "the Americans offered to help my brothers out of Iran and even hinted to the possibility of receiving them in the United States." Omar said the names of the al-Qaeda leader's children held in Tehran were: Othman bin Laden (27) who supports two wives, two sons and a daughter, Saad bin Laden (30) who has two daughters and a son, Mohammed bin Laden (25) who married a daughter of Qaeda's military commander Abu Hafs al-Masri, better known as Mohammed Atef, and has two daughters and a baby, Hamza (19) who has a wife and two children (Osama and Khairya) and also supports his mother Ms. Khairya Saber. Also among Bin Laden's children held in Iran his Fatima bin Laden (24) with her husband and daughter Najwa. Bin Laden's children and his wife Umm Hamza (mother of Hamza, Khairya Saber) arrived in Iran after a "two-week-long, difficult and miserable trip" and stayed in several apartments in the capital Tehran without drawing attention for several months. But Iranian authorities, who carefully monitored dozens of Arab Afghans who crossed into Iranian borders in search for a safe place after the fall of the Taliban, eventually held the bin Laden family and other Arabs in a detention center in Tehran. |
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India-Pakistan |
Drones are killing off Qaeeda 'senior management' |
2009-01-03 |
![]() A dozen of al-Qaeda's "senior management" have been killed by Predator drone attacks, which have been so effective in locating their targets that the militant group has been forced to move from traditional outdoor training camps to classroom-style facilities that are hidden from view. After the success of the new weapons, which are unmanned and operate by remote control from 15,000 feet, the United States is to step up its drone attacks. On January 1 Hellfire missiles, operated from an air force base in Nevada, hit targets in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan, close to Afghanistan, and yesterday two missiles slammed into the stronghold where Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taleban leader, is believed to live. The killings have had a huge impact on the structure, organisation and effectiveness of al-Qaeda, limiting the capacity for commanders to liaise with each other, further separating the top command from the lower ranks and introducing a high degree of uncertainty and a constant awareness of the likelihood of death lurking in the skies. Bin Laden, al-Qaeda's figurehead leader and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his Egyptian deputy, have had to rely on the loyalty of their associates to stay alive and remain hidden from the American surveillance networks. Predators, armed with Hellfire missiles and precision-guided penetration bombs, have already succeeded in targeting two individuals believed to have ranked number three in the al-Qaeda chain of command: Hamza Rabia and Abu Laith al-Libi. They have also killed Mohammed Atef, reputedly the chief of military operations, and several of the group's most experienced explosives and biological weapons specialists. One of the consequences of the Predator attacks has been that al-Qaeda has had to give up its traditional terrorist training camps. Sending recruits out into the open to receive military-style jihadist instruction in combat and bomb-making has become too risky. "As soon as they are spotted, the Americans attack with Predators," a counter-terrorist source said. Now terrorist training in the tribal regions in Pakistan is carried out "in the classroom", less visible from the air and making it more difficult for the Americans to monitor the scale of the recruiting. Communications between the top echelon and operatives is now restricted to human couriers. Mobile and satellite phones are never used by the core leaders because they know that American signals intelligence will be able to pinpoint individuals as soon as the devices are switched on. Since the Americans acquired missile-armed Predators and the newer model, called Reaper, the CIA and Pentagon have focused on killing terrorist targets rather than monitoring and tracking the activities of suspected al-Qaeda figures. The killing option has led to an increasingly successful record. Despite a number of attacks that led to civilian deaths, in more recent Predator missions -- particularly over the past four months -- the intelligence has been more accurate. In one mission in November a Predator strike on a compound in the village of Ali Khel in North Waziristan killed two of the most senior al-Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubair al-Masri, an Egyptian explosives expert, and Rashid Rauf, the British Pakistani who is alleged to have been linked to the Heathrow bomb plot of August 2006. There were claims that Rauf was not in the compound at the time, but counter-terror officials firmly believe that he was there and that he died. The killing of al-Libi, reputed to be a number three in the al-Qaeda hierarchy, in January last year was one of the biggest blows for bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. He was head of the Libyan fighting group of al-Qaeda and was regarded as an important director. He was also a charismatic, respected religious figure and operational planner who could smooth the way for al-Qaeda in the tribal areas whenever there were confrontations between the terrorist leaders and their Pakistani hosts over the constant threat posed by the American Predators. Another serious loss to al-Qaeda was that of Abu Abeda al-Masri, the head of external relations who died of natural causes after becoming ill with hepatitis. He was a significant loss in terms of the threat to the UK because his role was to train Britons. Another key Predator victim was Abu Suleiman al-Jusayi (or al-Jazairi), an Algerian who was an al-Qaeda trainer and explosives specialist. He had been involved in a series of European terrorist networks. He was killed in the Bajaur tribal district of Pakistan in June. One of the most sought-after American targets was Abu Kabbah al-Masri, al-Qaeda's most experienced biological weapons scientist. He was engaged in the chemical and biological trials that were uncovered in Afghanistan in 2001. He was known to be continuing his experiments in the tribal regions of Pakistan. He was tracked by the Americans and killed by a Hellfire missile in the second half of last year. Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, another poisons expert, is also believed to have been killed by the Americans in a Predator attack. The only al-Qaeda commander to have been killed by other means in the past 12 months was Abu Ghadiyah, who was in charge of the production line of suicide bombers from Syria into Iraq. He died during a controversial US commando helicopter raid across the border from Iraq in October. |
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Home Front: WoT |
Obama: let's nail bin Laden, but let's be nice about it |
2008-06-19 |
Jim Geraghty, 'Campaign Spot' @ National Review Obama has a secret plan to kill Osama bin Laden that somehow doesn't make him a martyr. WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday he would bring Osama bin Laden to justice in a way that wouldn't allow the terrorist mastermind to become a martyr, but he may be killed if the U.S. government finds him. A couple reactions: 1) On our list of concerns regarding Osama bin Laden, how high is, 'if we kill him, he'll be seen as a martyr' on the list? Has the 'martyrdom' of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu Laith al Libi, Mohammed Atef, and Abu Hamza Rabia really been that energizing for al-Qaeda? Don't we want to kill these guys? Isn't that the point of dropping bombs on them and sending Special Forces after them? I suspect it's not a 'concern,' it's more of a pretext for not invoking the death penalty because, eeeww, the death penalty is, like, yucky. One unintended (I hope it's unintended!) consequence of this kind of thinking is that while we're perfectly willing to kill off the low-level cannon fodder, the people who actually run the terror networks become 'off limits.' I think that's exactly backwards. I think it's much more effective to summarily kill off the bosses and at least hold open the possibility of mercy for the foot soldiers (if they surrender peacably, of course). 2) Does the world really not 'understand the murderous acts that he's engaged in'? Well, certain dark corners of the world appear not to. Would anyone who was unpersuaded by the video of him bragging about 9/11 -- and the numerous subsequent videotape and audiotapes of him taking credit for the attacks -- be persuaded by a trial? 3) Is the world truly worried about the U.S. might not 'abide by basic conventions' if it captures Osama bin Laden? 3a) If there's any country that would openly stand up for bin Laden's due process rights, are they anyone we should be taking seriously? 4) How many Americans would object to the waterboarding of Osama bin Laden? 5) If the moment he was brought to a U.S. base, a U.S. soldier -- or better yet, the President of the United States -- walked up to bin Laden and raised a gun and executed him right then and there, would the world complain about the lack of a trial? The UN would, but who cares what they think? How many Americans would complain? I can think of a couple or three places (here and here and here) one could find some. |
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Terror Networks |
Flashback: Major al Qaeda leaders killed or captured |
2008-02-01 |
Reuters) - Abu Laith al-Libi, one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants who commanded militant forces in Afghanistan, has been killed, U.S. officials and an al Qaeda-linked Web site have said. The following is a list of major al Qaeda figures killed or captured since 2001: Drum roll, if you please. AFGHANISTAN: * Mohammed Atef, one of the top leaders of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, was killed in a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan in November 2001. ALGERIA: * Hareg Zoheir, the deputy chief of al Qaeda's North Africa wing, was killed along with two other rebels in a gun battle with Algerian troops in October 2007. IRAQ: * Humadi al-Takhi, a district commander of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by Iraqi and U.S. forces in April 2006. * Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. air raid in June 2006. * U.S. forces killed Muhammed Abdullah Abbas al-Issawi, described as a security emir for al Qaeda in Iraq in April 2007. * The U.S. military killed Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri, an al-Qaeda figure accused of involvement in the kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll, in May 2007. PAKISTAN: * Saudi-born Palestinian Abu Zubaydah was arrested after a shootout in the central Pakistani city of Faisalabad in March 2002. Zubaydah was operations director for al Qaeda and the first high-ranking member to be arrested. * Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni national and one-time roommate of Mohammed Atta, suspected ringleader of the September 11 hijackers, was captured in Karachi in September 2002. * Security forces arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda's number three and alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, in a raid in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, in March 2003. * Musaad Aruchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with a $1 million bounty on his head, was arrested in Karachi in June 2004. * Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was arrested in the city of Gujrat in July 2004. * Pakistani intelligence agencies and security forces arrested Abu Faraj Farj al-Liby, mastermind of two failed attempts on President Pervez Musharraf's life, in May 2005. * Abu Hamza Rabia, an al Qaeda commander ranked the third most senior leader in Osama bin Laden's network, was killed in a tribal region of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan in December 2005. * Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah (also known as Abdul Rehman), an Egyptian al Qaeda member wanted for involvement in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya, was killed by Pakistani forces close to the Afghan border in April 2006. SAUDI ARABIA: * Youssef al-Eiery, the leading al Qaeda militant in Saudi Arabia who was believed to be behind the May 2003 suicide bombings in Riyadh which killed at least 35 people, was shot dead by Saudi police shortly after the attacks. Several of Eiery's successors, including Khaled Ali Haj, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin and Saleh al-Awfi were killed by Saudi security forces over the next two years YEMEN: * Yemeni security forces shot dead Yasser al-Homeiqani, an al Qaeda fugitive, in southern Yemen in January 2007. Of course, if US forces didn't hang a toe-tag on them personnaly, they have been known to rise from the dead. |
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Terror Networks |
Al-Qa'ida releases film showing Bin Laden with the hijackers |
2006-09-08 |
![]() The film, produced by As-Sahab, al-Qa'ida's media branch, was released as George Bush, for the fourth time in just eight days, tried to focus the country on his handling of the "war on terror", insisting that his administration had made the US far safer in the five years since the 11 September terror attacks. "We have waged an unprecedented campaign against terrorism at home and abroad and that campaign has succeeded in protecting the homeland," Mr Bush said in Atlanta, Georgia, four days before the anniversary of the 2001 attacks. His latest speech came less than 24 hours after his surprise announcement of the transfer of 14 suspected terrorists from secret CIA prisons to the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba. One of those suspects, Ramzi Binalshibh, appeared in the footage shown on al-Jazeera last night. Binalshibh was captured four years ago in Pakistan and is being held in US custody. Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri, was killed in an attack by the US in Afghanistan in 2001. The video shows Bin Laden dressed in a dark robe and white head gear walking outdoors in a mountainous area. Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the video. The station has screened numerous films airing Bin Laden and other al-Qa'ida supporters' views. |
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Terror Networks |
Al-Qaeda after the Iraq War |
2006-04-01 |
It should be stressed that contrary to the impression given by the media and some analysts in the West concerning its so called diffuse independent networking character, al-Qa'ida began life and long continued its operations with the support of states:[1] * 1980s, phase one: Activity in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. * 1990-96, phase two: To work alongside the Islamist revolutionary regime in Sudan to export revolution to Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Eritrea. * 1996-2001, phase three: Operations from Afghanistan, as an ally of the Taliban government. Even today, the organization is "state-centered" in the sense that its goal is to take power in specific Islamic states and establish a new form of authoritarian government, a caliphate. The significance of a reliable base in Muslim territory is reflected in al-Qa'ida's return to Arab land, and its attempts to destabilize at least one regime and achieve a new safe haven. Ayaman al-Zawahiri, bin Ladin's deputy, explains the importance of the quest for a "fundamentalist base":[2] "Victory for the Islamic movements against the world alliance cannot be attained unless these movements possess an Islamic base in the heart of the Arab region." He notes that mobilizing and arming the nation will not yield tangible results until a fundamentalist state is established in the region: The establishment of a Muslim state in the heart of the Islamic world is not an easy or close target. However, it is the hope of the Muslim nation to restore its fallen caliphate and regain its lost glory... We must not despair of the repeated strikes and calamities. We must never lay down our arms no matter how much losses or sacrifices we endure. Let us start again after every strike, even if we had to begin from scratch. It is in this framework that we must see the concentration of al-Qa'ida's operational efforts on the Iraqi front. At the end of 2004, the US State Department assessed that the role of key Islamist groups in Iraq makes it "the central battleground in the global war on terrorism."[3] Since the demise of the Taliban regime and al-Qa'ida "solid base" in Afghanistan three phases can be distinguished in the operational activity of the organization and its affiliates and supporters in the Muslim world: (1) After the demise in Afghanistan, the strategy of destabilizing Muslim countries by attacks against soft targets; (2) after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, concentration on the Iraqi arena against the US army and the coalition forces with the hope of a victory on the 1980s Afghanistan model; (3) since the fall of 2004, an extension of the fighting to most of the Middle East, an increased effort in Europe, but the appearance of the first strategic splits in its ranks. Al-Qa'ida is Weakened after the Demise in Afghanistan The goal of the World Islamic Front (WIF) for the Struggle Against Jews and Crusaders proclaimed by bin Ladin on February 22, 1998 was to form an international alliance of Sunni Islamist organizations, groups, and Muslim clerics sharing a common religious/political ideology and a global strategy of Holy War (jihad). It was replaced in the spring of 2002 by a new name, or perhaps framework-Qa'idat al-Jihad (The Jihad Base)-and WIF virtually disappeared.[4] After the war in Afghanistan and until the Madrid bombings in March 2004, in spite of bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri, and other al-Qa'ida spokes persons' repeated threats to hit devastatingly at the heart of the United States and the Western world, all successful terrorist attacks have targeted Muslim countries (and Muslim communities such as Mombassa, Kenya). Local or regional groups affiliated with al-Qa'ida were primarily responsible for these operations. They include the Salafi factions in Tunisia and Morocco; Yemeni Islamists; or the Indonesian Jemaa Islamiyya (in fact a group led from Indonesia by Abu Bakr Bashir but with Malaysian, Philippine, and Singaporean branches striving to form a new regional Islamic state).[5] It seems that only the suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia in May 2003 were directly related to al-Qa'ida militants.[6] Interestingly, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, the economies of all these countries or communities (Djerba, Bali, Casablanca, Istanbul, Mombassa) are heavily dependent on tourism. The campaign by al-Qa'ida terrorists and associates against Arab and Muslim regimes may be explained by a shift in the ideological and strategic thinking of those Islamists who now occupy the vacuum left by bin Ladin and his deputy. The targeting of the tourist infrastructures calls to mind the strategy of the Egyptian jihadist groups in the mid-1990s. One might speculate that this strategy results from the growing influence of al-Zawahiri, bin Ladin's deputy.[7] Yet this is also the result of the decline in al-Qa'ida's operational capabilities following the quick demise in Afghanistan, the unremitting campaign of harassment against its leaders, and the capture or elimination of many of its central commanders.[8] On February 11, 2003, just before the US-led war in Iraq, bin Ladin distributed two audiocassettes. One addressed the Iraqi people while the other (at 53 minutes his longest to date) was directed to Arab governments and clerics. The main focus of his speech was not the United States, but rather the Arab governments and the Islamic clerics that supported them and gave them legitimacy. The conflict with these Arab governments was presented as eternal and insolvable.[9] Focus on the Iraqi Arena Bin Ladin's February 2003 message to the Iraqi people sought to encourage their morale and guide them as to how they should face and defeat the incoming American invasion of their country. In an attempt to convince the Iraqis that the United States was not invincible, bin Ladin explained how he and his followers, numbering only about 300, had frustrated the American action against them at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. He stressed the importance of the Iraqi people fighting united against the Americans, irrespective of whether they were Arabs or non-Arabs (Kurds), Sunnis, or Shi'a.[10] Religious scholars from the Islamic Research Academy at Egypt's al-Azhar university also declared on March 10, 2003 that a US attack on Iraq would require Arabs and Muslims to wage a jihad in Iraq's defense against "a new crusade that targets its land, honor, creed, and homeland."[11] At the height of the war, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan declared that Saddam Hussein's government was ready to meet the overwhelming military superiority of the United States by resorting to widespread suicide attacks against Americans and British troops "and all who support them," both inside Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. At a news conference on March 29, 2003 he claimed that the Iraqi soldier who killed four Americans in a suicide attack outside the holy city of Najaf was the first in a wave of Iraqis and other Arab volunteers ready to become "martyrs." Arabs outside Iraq, he said, should help "turn every country in the world into a battlefield." [12] Upon the fall of Baghdad, al-Nida, al-Qa'ida's website posted a series of articles which stated that guerilla warfare was the most powerful weapon Muslims had, the best method to continue the conflict with the "Crusader Enemy." It mentioned that it was with guerilla warfare the Americans were defeated in Vietnam and the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, "the method that expelled the direct Crusader colonialism from most of the Muslim lands, with Algeria the most well known."[13] Despite American warnings Damascus permitted the passage of thousands volunteers, many of them Syrians, wishing to join the Iraqis in their war against the Americans. It started with a few dozen volunteers, mostly from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. This went on until a missile from an American plane hit one of the buses of volunteers in Iraq, killing five passengers. [14] Thus, the scenario for the insurgency and terrorist campaign in Iraq was built already in the weeks and possibly the months before the war, involving an "objective" coalition of ex-Ba'thists and army and intelligence officers, Iraqi Sunni Islamists delivered from Saddam's yoke, Muslim volunteers from Arab and European countries, and with the tacit support of Syria and probably Iran. Due to some major American strategic errors and in spite of the swift and stunning US military campaign in Iraq, this scenario developed into "a continuum of violence and uncertainty": the lack of a quick Iraqi political alternative to the Saddam regime (contrary to what happened in Afghanistan), the disbanding of the regular army and police forces, and the lack of a clear planning for the immediate aftermath of the war.[15] In the words of a known American military analyst, "the US chose a strategy whose post-conflict goals were unrealistic and impossible to achieve, and only planned for the war it wanted to fight and not for the "peace" that was certain to follow."[16] A short description of the Iraqi insurgency is necessary in order to understand and evaluate its use by al-Qa'ida and other global jihadist groups in order to expand the fight to the whole of the Middle East and beyond: During the summer and fall of 2003, Iraqi insurgents emerged as effective forces with significant popular support in Arab Sunni areas, and developed a steadily more sophisticated mix of tactics. In the process, a native and foreign Islamist extremist threat also developed which deliberately tried to divide Iraq's Sunni Arabs from its Arab Shi'ites, Kurds, and other Iraqi minorities. By the fall of the 2004, this had some elements of a low-level civil war, and by June 2005, it threaten to escalate into a far more serious civil conflict.[17] Iraqi insurgents, terrorists, and extremists exploited the media focus on dramatic incidents with high casualties and high publicity. They created "alliances of convenience and informal networks with other groups to attack the United States, various elements of the Iraqi Interim Government and elected government, and efforts at nation building." Then insurgents increasingly focused on Iraqi government targets, as well as Iraqi military, police, and security forces and tried to prevent Sunnis from participating in the new government, and to cause growing tension and conflict between Sunnis and Shi'a, and Arabs and Kurds. By May 2005, this began to provoke Shi'a reprisals, in spite of efforts to avoid this by Shi'a leaders, contributing further to the problems in establishing a legitimate government and national forces.[18] Although from the beginning of the war and its immediate aftermath many Islamist groups were involved in the fighting against the US and coalition forces, the Jordanian-Palestinian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was considered to be the most dangerous leader of the most dangerous group connected with al-Qa'ida.[19] He was presented by the US and Western intelligence agencies as the former director of a training camp in Afghanistan and a close associate of Usama bin Ladin. He was believed to have escaped to Iraq during the US invasion. He was reportedly in Baghdad from May-July 2002 to undergo medical treatment, while establishing a network of approximately two dozen members who moved about freely throughout Baghdad for over eight months, primarily conducting transfers of money and materials.[20] He coordinated terrorist activities in the Middle East, Western Europe, and Russia from his base in Iraq, and his connections stretched as far as Chechnya and the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia. Al-Zarqawi was considered to be the leader of the terrorist group al-Tawhid, which first gained public attention in Germany when a number of its members were arrested in that country in April 2002.[21] Zarqawi was also presented as the leader of the Arab contingent within Ansar al-Islam linked to al-Qa'ida plots in Jordan during the millennium celebration, as well as to attempts to spread the biological agent ricin in London and possibly other places in Europe.[22] At some point, most likely after the occupation of Iraq in April 2003, he split from Ansar al-Islam and created his own organization, which he called al-Tawheed wal Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad). This organization first came to world attention when US citizen Nicholas Berg was beheaded in April 2004, allegedly by Zarqawi himself, and the event was videotaped and posted on Islamist websites. Al-Tawheed wal-Jihad lacked a solid base of operation, and therefore the group decided to use Fallujah as "a safe haven and a strong shield for the people of Islam-'the Republic of Al-Zarqawi.'"[23] The radical Sunni Islamist insurgents, like those belonging to the Zarqawi group, called also "neo-Salafis" or "Takfiries", believe they are fighting a region-wide war in Iraq to create a Sunni puritan state, a war that extends throughout the world and affects all Arab states and all of Islam. Foreign volunteers are one of the most dangerous aspects of the insurgency involved in the cruelest sectarian terrorist attacks against civilians-mostly suicide bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings. Some clerics and Islamic organizations recruit young Arabs and men from other Islamic countries for Islamist extremist organizations and then infiltrate them into Iraq through countries like Syria. There is the danger that some will probably survive and emerge as new cadres of expert terrorists building a new generation of trained radical young men and jihadists outside the country.[24] Zarqawi's group is composed mostly of non-Iraqi Arab volunteers who originate from countries bordering Iraq-Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Syria-due to the ease with which jihadists from these countries can infiltrate Iraq. According to some researchers, the multi-national nature of the two groups could also explain the alliance between Zarqawi and bin Ladin.[25] The successes of the Zarqawi group during the two and a half years of terrorist and guerrilla activity and the continuation of their painful strikes against the coalition forces and primarily against the officials and security forces of the new Iraqi government has attracted more and more groups and volunteers to his ranks. Although for a long time he was considered the representative of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, it was only in December 2004 that his allegiance to bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida materialized. This was due to growing strategic and tactical disagreements between the various leaders of the jihadist movements. Expanding in the Middle East, Increased Effort in Europe, First Strategic Splits The disagreements are a result of the need to achieve at any cost a quick visible victory in the fight against the US-Western coalition and its Arab allies and relate to three main issues: (1) With the growing strategic and political status of the Shi'a in Iraq and the potential threat they represent in the entire Gulf area, the Shi'a have been designated as the Sunni jihadist movement's main enemy. (2) The growing number of innocent Muslims killed in terrorist attacks due to the increasing violence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have produced negative reactions among Arab public opinion and the need to delineate tactical "red lines." (3) With the beginning of the terrorist jihadist activity in Saudi Arabia in May 2003, there has become a need to define the main struggle front-Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or possibly Egypt. The need to score a strategic victory on the Iraqi and Middle Eastern fronts, to attract greater participation of new young levees in the struggle, and solidarity from the Arab masses have also pushed the jihadist leaders to bandwagon the Palestinian intifada and to increase their operational efforts in Europe in the hope of disrupting the US coalition. The Sunni-Shi'a Divide From the September 2003 assassination of Ayatollah al-Hakim and to present, Zarqawi has made the utmost effort to provoke the Shi'a of Iraq to retaliate against the Sunnis and thus trigger a civil war. This strategy, reflecting the common Wahhabi doctrine, became obvious after US authorities leaked a letter written by him in January 2004. The Shi'a were described as "the most evil of mankind...the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom." Their crime was "patent polytheism, worshipping at graves, and circumambulating shrines."[26] Zarqawi's position contradicted bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida's views concerning the Shi'a. It should be noted that in his audio message of February 2003, bin Ladin stressed the importance of the Sunnis and Shi'a fighting united against the Americans. He even cited Hizballah's 1983 suicide bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut as the first "American defeat" at the hands of Islamist radicals.[27] The victorious image in the Arab and Muslim world achieved by the Shi'a Hizballah movement and its leader Hasan Nasrallah after the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 and, more recently, the exchange of prisoners (including many Palestinians) between Israel and Hizballah in January 2004, created much resentment and criticism in Saudi jihadi-Salafi elements. Moreover, the presentation of Nasrallah as the "New Salah al-Din" put the role of the global vanguard of Islam played by Qa'idat al-Jihad at risk for a takeover by the Hizballah. Since the process of establishing a new government in Iraq, with a clear Shi'a majority, Salafi web sites and forums have stepped up their attacks against the Shi'a, Iran, and Shi'a doctrines.[28] It is interesting to note that it was bin Ladin who accepted the strategy of Zarqawi and the Saudi jihadists, recognizing the predominance of the leaders who continued the fight on the ground rather than that of the nominal leadership which was hiding somewhere in Pakistan. This process took a whole year and resulted in the nomination of Zarqawi as the "emir" of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Bin Ladin did not respond to Zarqawi's first letter sent to him in December 2003 (the one leaked in January 2004 by the Americans). On October 17, 2004, "with the advent of the month of Ramadan and the need for Muslims to unify ranks in the face of the enemy," Zarqawi announced that "Tawhid and Jihad Group, its prince and soldiers, have pledged allegiance to the shaykh of the mujahideen Usama bin Ladin."[29] He changed the name of his organization from al-Tawheed wal Jihad to Tandhim Qa'idat al-Jihad fi bilad al-Rafidain (The al-Qa'ida Jihad Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers). Interestingly, the announcement mentioned that "[t]here have been contacts between Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi_with the brothers in Al-Qaida for 8 months," but "a catastrophic dispute occurred." The contacts resumed, however, and in the end, "the brothers from Al-Qaida" understood "the strategy of the Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement in Mesopotamia..." and "their hearts" were "pleased by the methods [al-Zarqawi] used."[30] Al-Qa'ida indeed reprinted and acknowledged the statement, responding favorably to the new development in their online magazine Mu'askar al-Battar.[31] On December 27, 2004, bin Ladin designated "honored comrade Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi" as the "commander [Amir] of al-Qaida organization in the land of the Tigris and the Euphrates," and asked "the comrades in the organization" to obey him.[32] In a video aired on al-Jazeera, in what appears to be a response to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call on his Shi'a followers to vote en masse and decree that those who boycott the elections are "infidels," bin Ladin warned against the participation in elections: "Anyone who participates in these elections_ has committed apostasy against Allah." He also endorsed the killing of security people "in Allah's name."[33] However, this important issue has continued to trouble the relations between the al-Qa'ida leadership and al-Zarqawi, as evidenced in the letter sent to the latter by Ayman al-Zawahiri in July 2005. In this major document Zawahiri acknowledges "the extent of danger to Islam of the Twelve'er school of Shiism... a religious school based on excess and falsehood," and "their current reality of connivance with the Crusaders." He admits that the "collision between any state based on the model of prophecy with the Shi'a is a matter that will happen sooner or later." The question he and "mujahedeen circles" ask Zarqawi is "about the correctness of this conflict with the Shi'a at this time. Is it something that is unavoidable? Or, is it something can be put off until the force of the mujahed movement in Iraq gets stronger?"[34] Moreover, Zawahiri reminds Zarqawi that "more than one hundred prisoners-many of whom are from the leadership who are wanted in their countries-[are] in the custody of the Iranians." The attacks against the Shi'a in Iraq could compel "the Iranians to take counter measures." Actually, al-Qa'ida "and the Iranians need to refrain from harming each other at this time in which the Americans are targeting" them.[35] This is indeed a new kind of real-politik on the part of al-Qa'ida leadership. The Killing of Innocent Muslims The jihadist fighters in Iraq were enraged when in July 2004 Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Zarqawi's former prison mentor, posted an article on his website criticizing "blowing up cars or setting roadside explosives, by firing mortars in the streets and marketplaces, and other places where Muslims congregate." Al-Maqdisi stated that the "hands of the Jihad fighters must remain clean so that they will not be stained by the blood of those who must not be harmed even if they are rebellious and shameless," and warned against attacks on Christian churches, as this would strengthen the will of the infidels against Muslims everywhere.[36] A year later, al-Maqdisi criticized "the extensive use of suicide operations" in which many Muslims were being killed and expressed reservations about the extensive killing of Shi'a in Iraq. Moreover, he opposed declaring the Shi'a as non-Muslims, which in effect permitted their blood.[37] In a 90-minute audio recording released in May 2005, Zarqawi relied on Muslim jurists to justify and legitimize the collateral killing of Muslims in the act of killing infidels, as the evil of heresy is greater than the evil of collateral killing of Muslims.[38] In the same recording, Zarqawi announced the beheading of the chief of intelligence of the Shi'a Badr, "the brigade of perfidy, the brigade of apostasy and the brigade of agents for Jews and Crusaders." Some Islamist Saudi writers, such as Abd al-Rahman ibn Salem al-Shammari, also praised the beheading of captives. This then became one of Zarqawi's preferred tactics in his attempts to threaten and expulse the foreign presence in Iraq, and he was proudly named the "Shaykh of the Slaughterers."[39] In a July 2005 audiotape, Zarqawi claimed that it was a duty to wage jihad against the Shi'a, because they were apostates (murtadoon) and had formed an alliance with the Crusaders against the jihad fighters. In July 2005, Zarqawi published a third statement in which he rejected al-Maqdisi's accusations and attacked him, saying that ulama who were not participating in the jihad in Iraq had no right to criticize the actions of the fighters, thereby even serving Crusader interests.[40] A small number of Sunni shaykhs and organizations urged Zarqawi to withdraw his anti-Shi'a statements on the grounds that they ignite fitna (internal strife), thus serving the interests of the occupation. So did the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz al-Shaykh, and the Syrian Islamist Shaykh Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa Halimah. Moreover, five "resistance organizations"-the Army of Muhammad, al-Qa'qa Brigades, the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Army of Jihad Fighters in Iraq, and the Salah al-Din Brigades-stated that "the call to kill all Shi'ites is like a fire consuming the Iraqi people, Sunnis and Shi'ites alike" and proclaimed that the resistance targeted only Iraqis "connected to the occupation."[41] Define the Main Struggle Front: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt? Throughout bin Ladin's public statements and declarations runs one fundamental and predominant strategic goal: the expulsion of the American presence-both military and civilian-from Saudi Arabia and the entire Gulf region.[42] According to Cordesman and Obaid, Saudi Arabia only began to experience serious internal security problems when bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida actively turned against the monarchy in the mid-1990s and began to launch terrorist attacks in an effort to destroy it.[43] However, these attacks remained sporadic until May 2003 when cells affiliated with al-Qa'ida began an active terror campaign directed both at foreigners-especially Americans-and the regime.[44] According to this analysis, an organization that called itself the al-Qa'ida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula set up an infrastructure that included safe houses, ammunitions depots, cells, and support networks. However, in Afghanistan there were disagreements among the leadership of al-Qa'ida regarding the timing and potential targets of attack in Saudi Arabia, and the then local leader Yousef al-Uyeri maintained that al-Qa'ida members were not yet ready for it. This group was responsible for the May 2003 attacks which indicated that al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula had become a major threat. Since the May 2003 attack, Saudi Arabia has remained a prime target for bin Ladin. [45] This analysis does not explain why al-Qa'ida did not anything serious to attack its major target and the loathed Saudi royal regime until after its demise in Afghanistan. It seems more realistic to evaluate that there was a kind of unwritten agreement between the Saudi rulers and bin Ladin not to touch Saudi interests and soil. This could also explain why Saudi Arabia was one of the only three countries (with Pakistan and the UAE) that recognized the legitimacy of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, supported it financially, and maintained diplomatic relations with it until the last moment. According to Dr. Sa'ad al-Faqih, a widely acknowledged expert on al-Qa'ida, the jihadists have abandoned their previous tactics of targeting Westerners and the security forces in Saudi Arabia and are now focusing all their attention on the royal family. They "believe that the prevailing opinion in Saudi Arabia-and probably in the wider Muslim world-is that the royal family is infidel and deserves harsh treatment_ [and they] have overcome their fear of a secular takeover in the event of the sudden downfall of the House of Saud." According to al-Faqih, it seems that in the late 1990s, bin Laden thought that if the House of Saud were removed, the country would fall into the hands of secular forces. Al-Qa'ida has reached the conclusion that, as they learned from the Iraq theater, the sudden collapse of the regime would either invite foreign interference or lead to chaos. An American invasion would therefore provide a massive recruitment opportunity for them and a certain victory.[46] It is of interest to note that according to al-Faqih, the local Saudi leadership has made "quite a few clumsy decisions" in the recent past and "at the operational level there is now a very tenuous link between bin Laden and his advisers and the local al-Qaeda leadership in Saudi Arabia."[47] According to Reuven Paz, an Israeli expert on Islamist organizations, the attacks in Saudi Arabia marked an important change in the jihadist strategy and a return from the distant Afghanistan to the Arab land. This shift became even more evident after the first jihadist attacks in Sinai, on October 7, 2004, after seven years of a de facto timeout from terrorist operations conducted on Egyptian soil.[48] In an article written by the Saudi Abu Abbas al-Aedhi, the Sinai attack is presented as the first of several forthcoming attacks in Egypt as part of a clear strategy approved by the mujahideen in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt. The jihad in Iraq and Egypt are viewed as "the ropes to strengthen the Jihad in Arabia"[49] The next steps should be the beginning of jihad in Yemen and Kuwait on the one hand, and the unification of the North African jihadist groups in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, and the Sudan, on the other hand. The main theme of al-Qa'ida's strategy, however, is to place the jihad groups in Saudi Arabia at the center, coordinating the Islamist activity with the two "branches" in Iraq and Egypt as part of this central goal. This strategy was devised among others by the late Yousef al-Uyeri, killed in June 2003 by the Saudi police. According to this analysis, al-Uyeri marks the shift of the younger generation of the dominant scholars of global jihad to Saudi hands and should be viewed as the architect of global jihad in Iraq.[50] Another jihadist analysis, seemingly based upon the 1601 page book on jihad by Abu Mus'ab al-Suri relates to the Sinai attacks of October 2004, the consequent Cairo (April 2005) attacks, and the Sharm al-Shaykh (July 2005) attacks. According to al-Suri the most important jihadist target in this phase must be attacks against tourists. The attacks in Sinai were, therefore, a highly successful example of this strategy, both against the Egyptian government and in terrorizing the Westerners.[51] This also seems to be an attempt to identify new fronts in the Arab world-apart from Iraq-to conduct the struggle. Paz believes there is a high likelihood that we are facing two separate strategies and even two different competing parties of global jihad, with Zarqawi in the Iraqi arena and al-Suri stationed in other parts of the Arab world.[52] Furthermore, it is important to note that the Saudi involvement in the Islamist insurgency in Iraq is significant, as they represent some 61 percent of Islamists killed and some 70 percent of Arab suicide bombers. It seems that thus far, Saudis are not only the group most affected by the insurgency in Iraq, but also help feed it. One significant explanation for this could be the Wahhabi hostility towards the Shi'a, who are perceived as infidels, and the notion of the need to support the Sunni minority in Iraq.[53] Apparently, the new strategy proposed by the new ideologues of global jihad is implemented on the ground. In January 2005, eight Kuwaiti soldiers, five of them officers, were arrested after a tip from Saudi Arabia that an al-Qa'ida cell was operating in Kuwait and planning attacks against US troops. The subsequent round-up of suspects included the detention of an imam said to be the cell's mastermind. [54] On March 19, 2005, a car bomb driven by an Egyptian suicide bomber in Doha, the capital of Qatar, demolished a theater packed with Westerners and damaged an English speaking school, leading to one fatality and up to 50 people injured. The attack was the first in the country, which hosts the US Central Command that directed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, [55] and came two days after the suspected al-Qa'ida leader in Saudi Arabia urged militants in Qatar and other Gulf states to wage holy war against "crusaders" in the region. [56] The Brigades of Martyr Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, a previously unknown group apparently named for a Saudi al-Qa'ida leader killed in a 2004 shootout with security forces, issued a website statement threatening to carry out further attacks in Kuwait. Clear Saudi ties also have emerged in militant crackdowns in the Gulf island state of Bahrain. In 2004, at least six Bahrainis were arrested on suspicion of planning to bomb government buildings and foreign interests and collaborating with foreign terrorist groups. In January 2005, Omani authorities arrested at least 100 Islamic extremists suspected of planning to carry out attacks at a popular shopping and cultural festival.[57] Playing the Palestinian Card Until his demise in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001/2 bin Ladin gave Palestine low priority. For him, the heart of the matter was the US presence on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, which he saw as the bridgehead of a corruptive non-Muslim culture. Throughout bin Ladin's public statements and declarations is one fundamental and predominant strategic goal: the expulsion of the American presence-both military and civilian-from Saudi Arabia and the entire Gulf region. Bin Ladin and the WIF he created did not forget what they saw as crimes and wrongs done to the Muslim nation: "the blood spilled in Palestine and Iraq.... the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon_ and the massacres in Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, the Philippines, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnia, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina." Yet it is worth noting that the Palestinian issue was given no special prominence. According to Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, bin Ladin "has been criticized in the Arab world for focusing on such places as Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and [he] is therefore starting to concentrate more on the Palestinian issue."[58] Following the demise of Afghanistan, the hiding al-Qa'ida leaders bin Ladin and Zawahiri mentioned Palestine more and more as a top priority and in parallel there was a sharp increase in attacks by jihadist groups against Jewish and Israeli targets. The first major attack after the war was the suicide bombing on April 11, 2002 outside a historic synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. The 16 dead included 11 Germans, one French citizen, and three Tunisians. Twenty-six German tourists were injured. The Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Sites claimed responsibility. On May 16, 2003, 15 suicide bombers attacked five targets in Casablanca, Morocco, killing 43 persons and wounding 100. The targets were a Spanish restaurant, a Jewish community, a Jewish cemetery, a hotel, and the Belgian Consulate. The Moroccan Government blamed the Islamist al-Assirat al-Moustaquim (The Righteous Path), but foreign commentators suspected an al-Qa'ida connection. On November 15, 2003, two suicide truck bombs exploded outside the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues in Istanbul, killing 25 persons and wounding at least another 300. The initial claim of responsibility came from a Turkish militant group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, but Turkish authorities suspected an al-Qa'ida connection.[59] On November 28, 2002, at least 15 people died in the first suicide attack by al-Qa'ida against an Israeli target: an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombassa, Kenya. A large part of the Paradise Hotel was reduced to rubble and nine Kenyans and three Israelis were killed. A parallel attempt to fire two missiles at an Israeli holiday jet (an Arkia airline plane-a Boeing 757 carrying 261 passengers) that had taken off from the city's airport failed. The reason for this sudden interest in Jewish and Israeli targets was most likely the result of al-Qa'ida and associates groups' attempts to bandwagon what was considered at that stage a very successful violent al-Aqsa intifada by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other Palestinian groups. On the one hand, it permitted them to claim their support to the Palestinian people, but at the same time it created an anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli terrorist campaign which would attract more solidarity and support from the Arab and Muslim masses and possibly attract more young recruits to their ranks. More recently in August 2005, four Israeli cruise ships carrying a total of 3,500 tourists scheduled to dock in the Mediterranean Turkish resort of Alanya were rerouted to the island of Cyprus by the Israeli authorities due to fear of a terrorist attack. A Syrian citizen named Louai Sakra was arrested for plotting to slam speedboats packed with explosives into the cruise ships filled with Israeli tourists. Al-Qa'ida in Palestine? A new radical Muslim terrorist group with close ties to al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, has started operating in the Gaza Strip, according to PA security officials. Jundallah, or "Allah's Brigades," consists mostly of former Hamas and Islamic Jihad members. It launched its first attack on IDF soldiers near Rafah in mid-May 2005. The group is especially active in the southern Gaza Strip. Jundallah's emergence in the Gaza Strip confirms suspicions that al-Qa'ida has been trying to was trying to establish itself in the area before Israel's planned withdrawal.[60] On August 2, 2005, a posting on the forum al-Mustaqbal al-Islami (Islamic Future) included what it termed the "First Declaration of al-Qa'ida from the Land of the Outpost, Occupied Palestine," specifically the "military wing" of a group calling itself "Alwiyat al-Jihad fi Ard al-Ribat" (The Jihad Brigades in the Land of the Outpost). The declaration described a rocket operation undertaken on July 31, 2005 against the settlements of Neve Dekalim and Ganne Tal: ... In the context of the Islamic Jihad by our mujahideen brothers of al-Qa'ida's World Organization against the Jews and Crusaders. We declare that the Brigades are not a new or passing organization on the land of Palestine, but a [true] believer spirit that urges on the mujahideen to make themselves into a single rank. Some observers, however, believe that the new group is merely a split from Fatah or an operational pseudonym that will disappear after a few uses, as was the case with the Tanzim Jundallah group.[61] In September 2005, Mahmoud Waridat, a West Bank Palestinian arrested in July the same year, was charged by IDF prosecutors with undergoing training at an al-Qa'ida camp in Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, though it was said the defendant later declined an offer to join bin Ladin's global network.[62] A leaflet distributed in Khan Yunis in October 2005 by al-Qa'ida Jihad in Palestine announced that the terrorist group had begun working towards uniting the Muslims under one Islamic state, the only way for Muslims to achieve victory over their enemies. The leaflet is the latest indication of al-Qa'ida's effort to establish itself in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli withdrawal from the area. On the eve of the disengagement, a number of rockets were fired at the former settlements of Neveh Dekalim and Ganei Tal. An announcement claiming responsibility on behalf of al-Qa'ida members in the Gaza Strip was made by three masked gunmen who appeared in a videotape. Al-Qa'ida's new on-line television channel branded PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas a "collaborator with the Jews," accusing him of assisting Israel in its war on Hamas.[63] Nine Katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on the night of December 27, 2005. Four rockets hit the town of Kiryat Shmona, another hit the Western Galilee town of Shlomi, and four landed in open areas. IDF intelligence estimated that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril-was responsible for the Katyusha fire, most likely in coordination with Hizballah. As a result, on December 28, 2005, Israel Air Force fighter jets fired two missiles at a PFLP-GC training base at Na'ameh, about seven kilometers south of Beirut, slightly wounding two fighters.[64] On December 29, 2005, al-Qa'ida's Committee in Mesopotamia (Iraq), led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. According to its statement: [After] careful planning and intelligence gathering, a group of al-Tawheed lions and Al-Qaida operatives put their faith in Allah and launched a new attack on the Jewish state_ [with] ten Grad rockets from Muslim territory of Lebanon toward selected targets in the northern part of the Jewish state_. This blessed attack was carried out by the mujahideen in the name of Mujahid Shaykh Usama Bin Laden, the commander of al-Qa'ida_ With the help of Allah, what is yet to come will be far worse."[65] Sources in the IDF said it was difficult to determine the reliability of the announcement. It should be noted that there is an al-Qa'ida affiliate in Lebanon, Usbat al-Ansar, comprised of radical Sunni Palestinians from the Ayn al-Hilwah refugee camp in southern Lebanon. On August 19, 2005 an al-Qa'ida affiliate calling itself the Abdallah Azzam Battalions fired three Katyusha rockets from Aqaba, Jordan. One of the rockets landed near Eilat's airport, the second narrowly missed an American ship in the Aqaba harbor, and another hit a group of Jordanian soldiers. Although it is possible that Hizballah or one of its Palestinian allies were behind the December 27, 2005 bombing of northern Israel, the claiming of responsibility by Zarqawi's al-Qa'ida Committee in Mesopotamia should be taken seriously. It is possible that the stage of al-Qa'ida and Iran refraining "from harming each other" has already passed and the moment has arrived when the Iranian regime, in coordination with Assad's regime or Hizballah, have decided to give a free hand to al-Qa'ida to do their "dirty work."[66] Increased Effort in Europe Although the vast majority of Muslims in Europe are not involved in radical activities, Islamist extremists and vocal fringe communities that advocate terrorism exist and reportedly have provided cover for terrorist cells. It must be stressed that there was a serious Islamist terrorist threat in Europe long before 9/11. On December 24, 1994, four terrorist members of the Algerian GIA hijacked Air France flight 8969 at Algiers airport bound for Paris. The terrorists assassinated an Algerian policeman. In addition, during the intense standoff, authorities learned that the aircraft was laden with more than twenty sticks of dynamite and that the GIA planned to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris, blowing it up. The plane was diverted to the Marseille International Airport and there French commandos managed to overcome the terrorists.[67] In the 1990s, the NATO, EU, and US decision to support Bosnia's independence practically neutralized bin Ladin's plan to use the Bosnian front-and later Kosovo and Albania-to penetrate Europe. Still, some ex-mujahideen remain in Bosnia and seem recently to be active. In December 2000, the arrest of four suspected al-Qa'ida members by German police foiled a plot to attack the Strasbourg Cathedral. An Islamist preacher named Abu Qatada was arrested for the attack but was released on a lack of evidence. December is the twelfth and last month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... This article is about the year 2000. ...Also, in September 2001, US, European, and Middle Eastern efforts foiled a plot to blow up the US embassy in Paris. The same month, a plot was uncovered to bomb a NATO air base in Kleine Brogel, Belgium, home to 100 US military staff. Germany (the Hamburg cell) and Spain (the wide infrastructure in Madrid and some provincial cities) were identified as key logistical and planning bases for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Moreover, the Milan Islamic Center in Italy has served since the mid-1990s as a base and support for several Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan al-Qa'ida affiliated cells, which did not reach the stage of conducting terrorist attacks before their arrests. The March 11, 2004 attack on the trains in the Atocha station in Madrid was the first successful operation in Europe by an al-Qa'ida affiliated group. It was followed by the July 7 and 23, 2005 series of four suicide bombings in the London underground, the second one a failed operation. The March 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid have been attributed to an al-Qa'ida-inspired group of North Africans. UK authorities suspect the four young British nationals who carried out the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks on London had ties to al-Qa'ida as well. These attacks were presented as retaliation for the participation of Spanish and British troops in the US-led coalition in Iraq. The Madrid attack executed just three days before elections in that country indeed brought down the Aznar government and imposed a socialist government that decided to withdraw its troops from Iraq. However, the arrest of some 130 Islamist activists preparing new major attacks in Spain after the March 2004 bombings and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq prove that the war is only a good pretext.[68] The goals of the Islamists are much larger and they are not willing to compromise. And the Islamists have no intentions of stopping after one victory, and most likely not stop before the liberation of Andalusia from Spanish "occupation." Since the war in Iraq, attacks and threats have also targeted the "minor" US allies in the framework of the international coalition: Poland and Norway, South Korea, Italy, and Denmark. Moreover, police operations in Germany, Italy, Ireland, and the UK have led to the arrest of terror suspects and the dismantling of an Islamic network centered in Italy that recruited fighters for the insurgency in Iraq. This network, possibly involving Ansar al-Islam in Italy and al-Tawhid in the UK and Germany, also had a foothold in Norway, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. The preferred option and long-term goal of al-Qa'ida is therefore not a concept different from "transnationalism." The Muslim world is not, nor has it ever been, defined wholly or mainly in terms of the umma or transnational linkages and identities. To be sure, forms of solidarity over Muslim-related political conflicts and issues-such as Palestine, Kashmir, and now Iraq-do exert a hold on many people and inspire some to radical activism.[69] Zarqawi Taking the Lead? According to a serialized book published in July 2005 by a Jordanian journalist, the future strategy of Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi is based on expanding the conflict with the United States and Israel and involving new parties in it. Simultaneously, a broad-based Islamic jihadist movement will assume responsibility for changing the circumstances that have long prevailed in the region and for establishing an Islamic caliphate state in seven stages with Iraq as its base.[70] Turkey, which is located north of Iraq, is viewed as the most important Islamic state because of its great economic and human resources and significant strategic location. Abu-Mus'ab and al-Qa'ida believe that Turkey lacks self-determination and freedom because "the Jews of Dunma" control the army and the economy and are the real powerbrokers in the country. Therefore, Turkey's return to the ranks of the nation "will not happen unless a powerful strike is dealt to the Jewish presence in that country." Al-Qa'ida's current strategy is to infiltrate Turkey slowly and postpone major operations there until major gains are made in Iraq. Iran is the second country that al-Qa'ida seeks to involve in this conflict. Iran expects that the United States and Israel will strike a number of nuclear, industrial, and strategic Iranian facilities. Abu-Mus'ab thinks that the US-Israeli confrontation with Iran is inevitable and could succeed in destroying Iran's infrastructure. Accordingly, Iran is preparing to retaliate by using the powerful cards in its hands. The area of the war will expand, pro-US Shi'a in Iraq and Afghanistan will suffer embarrassment and might reconsider their alliances, and this will provide al-Qa'ida with a larger vital area from which to carry out its activities.[71] However, according to al-Faqih, "al-Qaeda secretly thinks it might have made a mistake by appointing Zarqawi as its leading representative in Iraq," because he is "too decisive as a commander" and is driven by arrogance. According to some rumors, "the jihadi circles are trying to reach bin Laden in order to convince him to remove Zarqawi as the local al-Qaeda commander in Iraq." The jihadist leaders in Iraq are not at all happy with Zarqawi's conduct and "begrudge his arrogance and recklessness." Basing himself on Zawahiri's letter to Zarqawi, al-Faqih concludes that Zawahiri remains al-Qa'ida's main strategist.[72] Conclusion It is clear from this succinct presentation and from the events on the ground that the current situation in the Middle East is both complex and volatile and that developments in one country or region are influencing neighboring countries and conflicts. Therefore, the war on terrorism will require a long and intricate campaign. The danger of the Islamist networks can be neutralized in the long run only by preventing the formation of a "liberated fundamentalist territory"-the concept of Ayman Zawahiri-in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Central Asia, Indonesia or elsewhere in the Muslim world. The existing danger is not that of a united World Islamist Front and its victory, but rather of a politically and socially destabilized Middle East and of an increasingly paranoid and undemocratic global society (especially if WMD terrorism succeeds). On the strategic-military level, only political, intelligence, and operational cooperation between the great international players-the United States, Europe, Russia, China, and India-can overcome this dangerous perspective. On the ideological and political level, the radical trends in the Muslim societies can be defeated only by the moderate Muslims. The words of a famous moderate Muslim leader of a moderate Muslim country, Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia, speak for themselves: An effective counterstrategy must be based upon a realistic assessment of our own strengths and weaknesses in the face of religious extremism and terror. Disunity, of course, has proved fatal to countless human societies faced with a similar existential threat. A lack of seriousness in confronting the imminent danger is likewise often fatal. Those who seek to promote a peaceful and tolerant understanding of Islam must overcome the paralyzing effects of inertia, and harness a number of actual or potential strengths, which can play a key role in neutralizing fundamentalist ideology. These strengths not only are assets in the struggle with religious extremism, but in their mirror form they point to the weakness at the heart of fundamentalist ideology... Muslims themselves can and must propagate an understanding of the "right" Islam, and thereby discredit extremist ideology. Yet to accomplish this task requires the understanding and support of like-minded individuals, organizations and governments throughout the world. Our goal must be to illuminate the hearts and minds of humanity, and offer a compelling alternate vision of Islam, one that banishes the fanatical ideology of hatred to the darkness from which it emerged.[73] *Ely Karmon is Senior Research Scholar at The Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and also Research Fellow at The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. He lectures on terrorism and guerrilla in modern times at IDC, at the IDF Military College, and at the National Security Seminar of the Galilee College. Karmon is the author of Coalitions of Terrorist Organizations. Revolutionaries, Nationalists and Islamists (Leiden, Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005). [1] Fred Halliday, "A Transnational Umma: Reality or Myth?," October 7, 2005, at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/umma_2904.jsp. [2] Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights under the Prophet's Banner, published as a serialized book by the London Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. English translation available at: www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ayman_bk.html. [3] US Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Country Reports on Terrorism 2004, Department of State Publication 11248, April 2005, pp. 61-62. [4] Reuven Paz, "Qa'idat al-Jihad. A New Name on the Road to Palestine," ICT website, May 7, 2002, at: www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=436. [5] April 11, 2002, a blast at Tunisian synagogue kills 17 people. A fuel tanker is blown up outside a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba killing 19 people, including 14 German tourists. An al-Qa'ida spokesman later says the organization was behind the suicide attack. October 12, 2002, bomb attacks on Bali nightclubs kill 202. Two bombs rip through a busy nightclub area in the Balinese town of Kuta killing 202 people, most of them foreign tourists. The Indonesian authorities believe the attacks were carried out by the South East Asian militant network Jemaa Islamiah which is said to have links to al-Qa'ida. November 28, 2002, Israeli targets come under attack in Kenya. Sixteen people including three suicide bombers are killed in a blast at an Israeli owned hotel in Mombassa. A missile fired at an Israeli plane misses its target. A message on a website purporting to come from al-Qa'ida says the group carried out the attack. May 12, 2003, dozens killed in Saudi bombings. At least 34 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh. The targets were luxury compounds housing foreign nationals and a US Saudi office. Washington and Riyadh say al-Qa'ida is the prime suspect. It is the first in a string of attacks over successive months in Saudi Arabia. May 16, 2003, Morocco is rocked by suicide attacks. Bomb attacks in Casablanca kill 45 people including 12 attackers. Targets include a Spanish restaurant, a five star hotel, a Jewish community center, and the Belgian consulate. Four men later sentenced to death for the attacks are said by the Moroccan authorities to be members of the Salafia Jihadia widely believed to be linked to al-Qa'ida. December 15, 2003, suicide bombers hit two Turkish synagogues. At least 23 people are killed and more than 300 injured in two devastating suicide attacks on synagogues in Istanbul. The government blames al-Qa'ida for the attacks. December 20, 2003, two bomb attacks on British interests in Turkey. Attacks on the British Consulate and the HSBC bank offices in Istanbul leave 27 people dead and more than 450 wounded. There are separate claims of responsibility from two allegedly al-Qa'ida connected groups. See BBC News, Timeline: Al-Qaeda, at: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.%20co.uk/1/hi/world/3618762.stm. [6] "Saudis arrest suspects in Riyadh bombings," ICT website, May 28, 2003, at: http://www.ict.org.il/spotlight/det.cfm?id=901. [7] Ayman al-Zawahiri audiocassette, October 9, 2002; September 2003: Parts of the 105-minute tape broadcast by al-Jazeera satellite television showed Bin Ladin with al-Zawahiri, who urged supporters to bury Americans in "the graveyard of Iraq." Although bin Ladin had not appeared on a videocassette for many months, remaining silent, he allowed al-Zawahiri to speak. [8] As of May 2005 the list included, among others: Ramzi bin al-Shibi (the reputed recruiter for the 9/11 attacks); Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubaydah, and Khaled Shaykh Mohammad (all senior operational planners); Abd al-Rahim al-Nashirih (bin Ladin's alleged point man on the Arabian Peninsula and chief organizer for maritime attacks such as the USS Cole suicide strike in 2000); Riduan Isamuddin (also known as Hambali, al-Qa'ida's main link to Southeast Asian militant groups and the accused mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks in Indonesia); Ahmed Khalfan Ghilani (one of the FBI's 22 most wanted terrorists, believed to be a key figure behind the 1998 U.S. embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania); Abu Faraj al-Libbi (thought to be al-Qa'ida's third most senior leader in 2005 and main coordinator for operations in Pakistan); Haitham al-Yemeni (described as a central figure in facilitating the international dissemination of jihadist communications and supplies). List taken from Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, Robert Reville, Anna-Britt Kasupski, Trends in Terrorism: Threats to the United States and the Future of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, RAND Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy, 2005. [9] Two bin Ladin supporters developed this critical analysis of Muslim governments in their articles. They present the Arab League and the Muslim Conference as "two paralyzed associations." Moreover, Arab Islamic movements are also criticized, and the weak leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, was compared with the strong figures of Hassan al-Bana and Sayyid Qutb. [10] B. Raman, "The Iraq War & Terrorism," South Asia Analysis Group, Paper no. 647, March 30, 2003. [11] Iraq Report, Vol. 6, No. 10, March 14, 2003. [12] John F. Burns, "Iraqis Threatening New Suicide Strikes against U.S. Forces," NYT, March 30, 2003. [13] "Al-Qa'ida on the Fall of Baghdad," MEMRI Special Dispatch-Jihad and Terrorism Studies, No. 493, April 11, 2003. [14] Ze'ev Schiff and Nathan Guttman, "Thousands cross Syrian border to fight for Iraq," Haaretz, April 1, 2003. See also Jonathan Schanzer, "Foreign Irregulars in Iraq: The Next Jihad?," Analysis of Near East Policy from the Scholars and Associates of The Washington Institute, PolicyWatch No.747, April 10, 2003. [15] On the lack of planning for the immediate aftermath of the war see Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (London: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 413. [16] See Anthony H. Cordesman, with the assistance of Patrick Baetjer, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Working Draft: Updated as of June 23, 2005. Cordesman gives an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of the Iraqi insurgency and the strategic and tactical errors of the Bush Administration in dealing with it. [17] Cordesman, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency, pp. 11-12. [18] Ibid. [19] For an in-depth analysis of his career see Nimrod Raphaeli, "The Sheikh of the Slaughterers: Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi and the Al-Qa'ida Connection," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series, No. 231, July 1, 2005. [20] King Abdallah of Jordan told the press that in 2002, Jordan had asked Iraq to extradite al-Zarqawi following the murder of the U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley, but the Saddam regime had ignored the request. Most agree that al-Zarqawi was definitely in Iraq at the end of 2002 and that he was given shelter by the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam (see below), which operated from northern Iraq. Ibid. [21] Ulrich Schneckener, "Iraq and Terrorism: How Are ' Rogue States' and Terrorists Connected?," Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik Comments, March 2003. [22] Kenneth Katzman, "Iraq : U.S. Regime Change Efforts, the Iraqi Opposition, and Post-War Iraq," Congressional Research Service Report, March 17, 2003. [23] Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers. [24] See Anthony H. Cordesman, New Patterns in the Iraqi Insurgency: The War for a Civil War in Iraq, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Working Draft, Revised: September 27, 2005. [25] Reuven Paz, "Arab Volunteers Killed in Iraq: An Analysis," Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (PRISM) Series of Global Jihad, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2005). [26] See Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers. [27] See Reuven Paz, "Global Jihad and the Sense of Crisis: al-Qa'idah's Other Front," PRISM Occasional Papers, Vol. 1, No. 4 (March 2003), at: www.e-prism.org/pages/4/index.htm. [28] Reuven Paz, "Hizballah or Hizb al-Shaytan? Recent Jihadi-Salafi Attacks against the Shiite Group," PRISM Occasional Papers, Vol. 2, No. 1 (February 2004), at: http://www.e-prism.org/images/PRISM_no_1_vol_2_-_Hizbullah_or_Hizb_al-Shaytan.pdf. [29] See National Terror Alert, at: http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/index.php?p=297. [30] "Communiqu? from Al-Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) in Iraq ," October 17, 2004, at http://www.globalterroralert.com/zarqawi-bayat.pdf. [31] "Zarqawi's Pledge of Allegiance to al-Qaeda: From Mu'asker al-Battar, Issue 21," Translation by Jamestown Foundation Researcher Jeffrey Pool, Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 2, No. 24, December 16, 2004. [32] Islamist sources in Britain criticized bin Ladin's designation of Zarqawi as leader of the group, because it was smaller than other terrorist organizations operating in Iraq, such as Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna or al-Jaysh al-Islami. See Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers. [33] Nimrod Raphaeli, "Iraqi Elections (III): The Islamist and Terrorist Threats," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 202, January 18, 2005. [34] See Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights under the Prophet's Banner, published as a serialized book by the London al-Sharq al-Awsat, the English translation at: http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ayman_bk.html. [35] "Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi," ODNI News Release No. 2-05, October 11, 2005, at http://www.dni.gov/letter_in_english.pdf. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the letter dated July 9, 2005, obtained during counterterrorism operations in Iraq. [36] Raphaeli, Iraqi Elections (III). [37] See Y.Yehoshua, "Dispute in Islamist Circles over the Legitimacy of Attacking Muslims, Shi'a, and Non-combatant Non-Muslims in Jihad Operations in Iraq: Al-Maqdisi vs. His Disciple Al-Zarqawi," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 239, September 11, 2005. [38] "The [collateral killing] is justified under the principle of dharura [overriding necessity], due to the fact that it is impossible to avoid them and to distinguish between them and those infidels against whom war is being waged and who are the intended targets. Admittedly, the killing of a number of Muslims whom it is forbidden to kill is undoubtedly a grave evil; however, it is permissible to commit this evil _ indeed, it is even required _ in order to ward off a greater evil, namely, the evil of suspending Jihad." See "Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi: Collateral Killing of Muslims is Legitimate," MEMRI, Special Dispatch, No. 917, June 7, 2005. [39] Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers. [40] Yehoshua, "Dispute in Islamist Circles over the Legitimacy of Attacking Muslims, Shi'a, and Non-combatant Non-Muslims in Jihad Operations in Iraq." [41] "Sunni Sheikhs and Organizations Criticize Al-Zarqawi's Declaration of War Against the Shi'ites," MEMRI Special Dispatch Series, No.1000, October 7, 2005. [42] According to the "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places"(its full title), "the latest and the greatest of [the] aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet_ is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places-the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka'ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims-by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies." The declaration is presented as the first step in the "work" of "correcting what had happened to the Islamic world in general, and the Land of the two Holy Places in particular.... Today.... the sons of the two Holy Places, have started their Jihad in the cause of Allah, to expel the occupying enemy out of the country of the two Holy places." See Ely Karmon, "Terrorism a la Bin Ladin is not a Peace Process Problem," PolicyWatch, No. 347, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 1998. [43] Cordesman and Obaid claim that the Kingdom was the first target of al-Qa'ida when in November 1995, the US-operated National Guard Training Center in Riyadh was attacked, leaving five Americans dead. This subsequently led to the arrest and execution of four men, purportedly inspired by Usama bin Ladin. However, bin Ladin who denied involvement praised the attack (see Washington Post, August 23, 1998) and according to other analysts the terrorists were inspired by the Jordanian jihadist ideologue al-Maqdasi. [44] See Anthony H. Cordesman and Nawaf Obaid, "Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia: Asymmetric Threats and Islamist Extremists," Center for Strategic and International Studies, Working Draft: Revised January 26, 2005. [45] Ibid. Again according to Cordesman and Obaid, at the beginning, al-Ayeri was the chief of al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula and reported directly to bin Ladin (al-Ayeri's was the only regional al-Qa'ida operation to report directly to OBL). Al-Ayeri's lieutenants, in turn, reported directly to him. They were responsible for setting up five autonomous cells focusing exclusively on operations within Saudi Arabia. [46] See Mahan Abedin, "New Security Realities and al-Qaeda's Changing Tactics: An Interview with Saad al-Faqih," Spotlight on Terror, Jamestown Foundation, Vol. 3, No. 12 (December 15, 2005). Dr. Saad al-Faqih heads the Saudi opposition group, Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA). [47] Ibid. [48] Reuven Paz , "From Riyadh 1995 to Sinai 2004: The Return of Al-Qaeda to the Arab Homeland," PRISM Series of Global Jihad, Vol. 2, No. 3 (October 2004). [49] The article, entitled "From Riyadh/East to Sinai," was published on several Islamist Internet forums. [50] According to Paz, two of his Saudi associates, are trying to fill his place-Shaykh Ahmad al-Zahrani, alias Abu Jandal al-Azdi in Saudi Arabia, and Shaykh Abu Omar Seyf in Chechnya, who is the leading Islamic scholar of the Arab battalion of volunteers there. Another individual to be noted is Shaykh Hamed al-Ali, a Saudi who lives in Kuwait. [51] The analysis was published on September 25, 2005 by a known al-Qa'ida supporter, nicknamed Abu Muhammad al-Hilali. It appears to be the first analysis of this kind to be based on the 1601 page book on Jihad by Abu Mus'ab al-Suri which was published via the internet in January 2005. See Reuven Paz, "Al-Qaeda's Search for new Fronts: Instructions for Jihadi Activity in Egypt and Sinai," PRISM Occasional Papers, Vol. 3, No. 7 (October 2005). [52] According to Paz, al-Suri is probably the most talented combination of a scholar and operative of global jihad. He was one of the chief al-Qa'ida explosive trainers in Afghanistan, but also gave many lectures about jihadist strategy, religion, and indoctrination. Many of his lectures from Afghanistan are posted on his web site in the form of video and audiotapes, and much of the material there appears in his monumental book. His call for a "Global Islamist Resistance" could be part of global jihad, but also a call for a new form of al-Qa'ida loyal to the doctrines of Abdallah Azzam, but not necessarily to the Saudi form of jihadist Tawhid. Interestingly, al-Suri has a European background. He is a Spanish citizen as a result of marriage, and lived in the 1990s in Spain and London. He is well familiar with the European arena and Muslim communities there, primarily that of North Africans. Ibid. [53] Reuven Paz, "Arab Volunteers Killed in Iraq: An Analysis," PRISM Series of Global Jihad, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2005). [54] 12,000 US civilians live in Koweit, while 25,000 US troops are based in there, using it as a launch pad for operations in Iraq. See Robin Gedye, "Soldiers in 'anti-US plot' held by Kuwait," Daily Telegraph, January 15, 2005. [55] Sean Rayment and Peter Zimonjic, "One dead as blast demolishes Qatar theatre packed with westerners," Daily Telegraph, March 20, 2005. [56] Reuters, March 25, 2005. [57] Paul Garwood, "Terror wave spreads across Mideast, raising concerns over regional links," Associated Press, February 1, 2005. [58] Karmon, "Terrorism a la Bin Ladin is not a Peace Process Problem." [59] See Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003: A Brief Chronology, Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, March 2004, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm. [60] Khaled Abu Toameh, "Al-Qaida-linked terrorists in Gaza," The Jerusalem Post, May. 20, 2005. [61] Stephen Ulph, "Al-Qaeda expanding into Palestine?" Terrorism Focus, Jamestown Foundation, Vol., 2, No. 15, August 5, 2005. [62] "IDF prosecutors charge West Bank Palestinian with Al-Qaida link," Reuters, September 8, 2005. [63] Khaled Abu Toameh, 'Al-Qaida raises its head in Gaza," Jerusalem Post, October 10, 2005. [64] See Amos Harel, 'Iraq al Qaeda claims Tuesday's missile attack on northern Israel,' Haaretz, December 29, 2005. [65] See the Communique at http://www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/1205/zarqawi1205-9.pdf. [66] "Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi." [67] See "Air France Flight 8969" at: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/%20Flight%20AF%208969%20Alger- Paris%20hijacked. [68] See "El n?mero de presos por terrorismo isl?mico en Espa?a ha crecido un 59% en el 2005," Barcelona La Vanguardia, December 25, 2005. [69] Halliday, "A Transnational Umma." [70] Fuad Husayn, The Second Generation of Al-Qa'ida (Part 13), a serialized book on Al Zarqawi and Al-Qa'ida published by the London al-Quds al-'Arabi, July 11, 2005. See also Yassin Musharbash, "What al-Qaida really wants," Spiegel Online, August 12, 2005, at: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,369448,00.html. [71] Ibid. [72] See See Mahan Abedin, "New Security Realities and al-Qaeda's Changing Tactics: An Interview with Saad al-Faqih," [73] Abdurrahman Wahid, "Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam," WSJ.com Opinion Journal, December 30, 2005, at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007743. |
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Europe |
Sakra funded Istanbooms |
2006-02-18 |
Newly released police testimony of al-Qaeda member Louai Sakka found in case records has come the fore. Sakka resorted to his right to remain silent when asked by the prosecutor to testify. Although Sakka's initial statement was not included in the indictment, it is still clear from it that he is linked to al-Qaeda terror organization. He has knowledge of not only the Istanbul bombings that happened between 15 and 20 November 2003 but of Iraqi insurgents as well. His statements were presented in a fact-finding report signed by Public Prosecutor Zekeriya Oz as well. "Sakka wanted his statements to be saved on the computer, and whatever he said was recorded," a note on the dossier read. Sakka was arrested at Diyarbakir Airport while in preparation for a bomb attack against Israeli ships in Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya. His statement covered detailed information about his activities as a senior al-Qaeda official. According to Sakka, the idea of launching a bomb attack was first brought up during a meeting with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in April 2001. The dossier also contains information that he received an offer from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to be an emir while Sakka was in Iraq in 2002, when Habip Akdas asked Sakka to finance the bomb attacks on the Israeli ships. Sakka's account provides detailed information about how he managed to finance those attacks. Although bin Laden assigned Sakka to organize the Antalya bombings, Sakka could not resist Akdas' opposition to the plan, and rejected the task. Sakka's report said he supplied $150,000 to conduct the bomb attacks, and Habip Akdas, Saadetin Akdas and Burhan Kus went to Syria one week before their suicide attacks. Although attacks were initially targeted at Israeli ships in Antalya and other places occupied by Jews, said Sakka in his account to police, bad weather impeded attackers from carrying out their plan, forcing them to change their strategy. Only the HSBC bombings in Istanbul, Sakka had no prior knowledge of. Bin Laden did not express his approval of those bombings, Sakka said in his testimony, because it would affect a very large number of Turkish citizens. Azat Ekinci, Hadip Akdas, Gurcan Bac, Mohammed Tokas all died, according to Sakka. In Sakkas statements it is written that he is the one who provided two terrorists with a passport before they organized the September 11 attacks. Sakka's testimony also gives us some clues that Murat Yuce, the Turkish driver kidnapped in Iraq, was killed by a terrorist of Sakka's choice. There were also some Turkish people who took part in the execution of Yuce. The following is the structure of al-Qaeda, according to Sakka: Leader Osama bin Laden, His assistants: Mohammed Atef (Abu Hafs al-Misri), Ayman al- Zawahiri (Information Minister), Seyful Adil, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (his assistant is Sakka) and Abu Mohammed Zeyyiat al-Misri (al-Qaeda's camp emir). |
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Terror Networks |
CIA expanding use of Predators to take out al-Qaeda leaders |
2006-01-29 |
Despite protests from other countries, the United States is expanding a top-secret effort to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized Al Qaeda, U.S. officials say. The CIA's failed Jan. 13 attempt to assassinate Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri in Pakistan was the latest strike in the "targeted killing" program, a highly classified initiative that officials say has broadened as the network splintered and fled Afghanistan. The strike against Zawahiri reportedly killed as many as 18 civilians, many of them women and children, and triggered protests in Pakistan. Similar U.S. attacks using unmanned Predator aircraft equipped with Hellfire missiles have angered citizens and political leaders in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. Little is known about the targeted-killing program. The Bush administration has refused to discuss how many strikes it has made, how many people have died, or how it chooses targets. No U.S. officials were willing to speak about it on the record because the program is classified. Several U.S. officials confirmed at least 19 occasions since Sept. 11 on which Predators successfully fired Hellfire missiles on terrorist suspects overseas, including 10 in Iraq in one month last year. The Predator strikes have killed at least four senior Al Qaeda leaders, but also many civilians, and it is not known how many times they missed their targets. Critics of the program dispute its legality under U.S. and international law, and say it is administered by the CIA with little oversight. U.S. intelligence officials insist it is one of their most tightly regulated, carefully vetted programs. Lee Strickland, a former CIA counsel who retired in 2004 from the agency's Senior Intelligence Service, confirmed that the Predator program had grown to keep pace with the spread of Al Qaeda commanders. The CIA believes they are branching out to gain recruits, financing and influence. Many groups of Islamic militants are believed to be operating in lawless pockets of the Middle East, Asia and Africa where it is perilous for U.S. troops to try to capture them, and difficult to discern the leaders. "Paradoxically, as a result of our success the target has become even more decentralized, even more diffused and presents a more difficult target no question about that," said Strickland, now director of the Center for Information Policy at the University of Maryland. "It's clear that the U.S. is prepared to use and deploy these weapons in a fairly wide theater," he said. Current and former intelligence officials said they could not disclose which countries could be subject to Predator strikes. But the presence of Al Qaeda or its affiliates has been documented in dozens of nations, including Somalia, Morocco and Indonesia. High-ranking U.S. and allied counter-terrorism officials said the program's expansion was not merely geographic. They said it had grown from targeting a small number of senior Al Qaeda commanders after the Sept. 11 attacks to a more loosely defined effort to kill possibly scores of suspected terrorists, depending on where they were found and what they were doing. "We have the plans in place to do them globally," said a former counter-terrorism official who worked at the CIA and State Department, which coordinates such efforts with other governments. "In most cases, we need the approval of the host country to do them. However, there are a few countries where the president has decided that we can whack someone without the approval or knowledge of the host government." The CIA and the Pentagon have deployed at least several dozen of the Predator drones throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and along the borders of Pakistan, U.S. officials confirmed. The CIA also has sent the remote-controlled aircraft into the skies over Yemen and some other countries believed to be Al Qaeda havens, particularly those without a strong government or military with which the United States can work in tandem, a current U.S. counter-terrorism official told The Times. Such incursions are highly sensitive because they could violate the sovereignty of those nations and anger U.S. allies, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Predator, built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego, is a slender craft, 27 feet long with a 49-foot wingspan. It makes a clearly audible buzzing sound, and can hover above a target for many hours and fly as low as 15,000 feet to get good reconnaissance footage. They are often operated by CIA or Pentagon officials at computer consoles in the United States. The drones were designed for surveillance and have been used for that purpose since at least the mid-1990s, beginning with the conflict in the Balkans. After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush ordered a rapid escalation of a project to arm the Predators with missiles, an effort that had been mired in bureaucratic squabbles and technical glitches. Now the Predator is an integral part of the military's counter-insurgency effort, especially in Iraq. But the CIA also runs a more secretive and more controversial Predator program that targets suspected terrorists outside combat zones. The CIA does not even acknowledge that such a targeted-killing program exists, and some attacks have been explained away as car bombings or other incidents. It is not known how many militants or bystanders have been killed by Predator strikes, but anecdotal evidence suggests the number is significant. In some cases, the destruction was so complete that it was impossible to establish who was killed, or even how many people. Among the senior Al Qaeda leaders killed in Predator strikes were military commander Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan in November 2001 and Qaed Sinan Harithi, a suspected mastermind of the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen, in 2002. Last year, Predators took out two Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan: Haitham Yemeni in May and Abu Hamza Rabia in December, one month after another missile strike missed him. The attack on Rabia in North Waziristan also killed his Syrian bodyguards and the 17-year-old son and the 8-year-old nephew of the owner of the house that was struck, according to a U.S. official and Amnesty International, which has lodged complaints with the Bush administration following each suspected Predator strike. Another apparent Predator missile strike killed a former Taliban commander, Nek Mohammed, in South Waziristan in June 2004, along with five others. A local observer said the strike was so precise that it didn't damage any of the buildings around the lawn where Mohammed was seated. At the time, the Pakistani army said Mohammed had been killed in clashes with its soldiers. Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA's special unit hunting Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, said he was aware of at least four successful targeted-killing strikes in Afghanistan alone by November 2004, when he left the agency. In the attack on Zawahiri, word spread quickly that a U.S. plane had been buzzing above the target beforehand. Afterward, villagers reportedly found evidence of U.S. involvement. The missiles intended for Bin Laden's chief deputy incinerated several houses in Damadola, a village near Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan. But Zawahiri was not there, U.S. officials now believe. Pakistan said it was investigating whether the strikes killed other high-ranking militants. There were some well-publicized failures before the Zawahiri strike. In February 2002, a Predator tracked and killed a tall man in flowing robes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The CIA believed it was firing at Bin Laden, but the victim turned out to be someone else. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. government had targeted Bin Laden in at least one Cruise missile strike. But the CIA was reluctant to engage in targeted killings because it said the laws regarding assassinations were too vague and the agency could face criminal charges. Even today, documents and interviews suggest that the U.S. policy on targeted killings is still evolving. Some critics, including a U.N. human rights watchdog group and Amnesty International, have urged the Bush administration to be more open about how it decides whom to kill and under what circumstances. A U.N. report in the wake of the 2002 strike in Yemen called it "an alarming precedent [and] a clear case of extrajudicial killing" in violation of international laws and treaties. The Bush administration, which did not return calls seeking comment for this story, has said it does not recognize the mandate of the U.N. special body in connection with its military actions against Al Qaeda, according to Amnesty International. "Zawahiri is an easy case. No one is going to question us going after him," said Juliette N. Kayyem, a former U.S. government counter-terrorism consultant and Justice Department lawyer. "But where can you do it and who can you do it against? Who authorizes it? All of these are totally unregulated areas of presidential authority." "Paris, it's easy to say we won't do it there," said Kayyem, now a Harvard University law professor specializing in terrorism-related legal issues. "But what about Lebanon?" Paul Pillar, a former CIA deputy counter-terrorism chief, said the authority claimed by the Bush administration was murky. "I don't think anyone is dealing with solid footing here. There is legal as well as operational doctrine that is being developed as we go along," Pillar said. "We are pretty much in uncharted territory here." Pillar, who was also the CIA's National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia before retiring in mid-2005, said there had long been disagreement within the intelligence community over whether targeted killings were legally permissible, or even a good idea. Before Sept. 11, Pillar said, CIA officers were issued vaguely worded guidelines that seemed to give them authority to kill Bin Laden, but only during an attempt to capture him. The 9/11 commission investigating the attacks in New York and Washington concluded that such vaguely worded laws and policies gave little reassurance to those who might be pulling the trigger that they would not face disciplinary action or even criminal charges. Although presidents Ford and Reagan issued executive orders in 1976 and 1981 prohibiting U.S. intelligence agents from engaging in assassinations, the Bush administration claimed the right to kill suspected terrorists under war powers given to the president by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks. It is the same justification Bush has used for a recently disclosed domestic spying program that has the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants, and a CIA "extraordinary rendition" program to seize suspected terrorists overseas and transport them to other countries with reputations for torture. Strickland, like some other officials, said the Predator program served as a deterrent to foreign governments, militias and other groups that might be harboring Al Qaeda cells. "You give shelter to Al Qaeda figures, you may well get your village blown up," Strickland said. "Conversely, you have to note that this can also create local animosity and instability." The CIA's lawyers play a central role in deciding when a strike is justified, current and former U.S. officials said. The lawyers analyze the credibility of the evidence, how many bystanders might be killed, and whether the target is enough of a threat to warrant the strike. Other agencies, including the Justice Department, are sometimes consulted, Strickland said. "The legal input is broad and extensive," he said. Scheuer said he believed the process was too cumbersome, and that the agency had lost precious opportunities to slay terrorists because it was afraid of killing civilians. But others said they had urged the Bush administration to adopt a multi-agency system of checks and balances similar to that used by Israel, which for decades has convened informal tribunals to assess each proposed targeted killing before carrying it out. Amos N. Guiora, a senior Israeli military judge advocate who participated in such tribunals, said that although the failed Zawahiri strike itself appeared to be justifiable, the result suggested a lack of adequate deliberations on the quality of the intelligence. "I think [the] attack was a major screw-up, because so many kids died. It raises questions about the entire process," said Guiora, who now a professor at Case Western Law School and director of its Institute for Global Security Law and Policy. "It shows the absolute need to have a well-thought-through and developed process that examines the action from a legal perspective, an intelligence perspective and an operational perspective. Because the price you pay here is that you are going to have to be hesitant the next time you pull the trigger." |
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Home Front: Politix |
Newsweek has more on al-Libi |
2005-11-11 |
A CIA document shows the agency in January 2003 raised questions about an Al Qaeda detaineeâs claims that Saddam Husseinâs government provided chemical and biological weapons training to terroristsâweeks before President George W. Bush and other top officials flatly used those same claims to make their case for war against Iraq. The CIA document, recently provided to Congress and obtained by NEWSWEEK, fills in some of the blanks in the mysterious case of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured Al Qaeda commander whose claims about poison-gas training for the Qaeda group by Saddamâs government formed the basis for some of the most dramatic arguments used by senior administration officials in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. As NEWSWEEK first reported last July, al-Libi has since recanted those claims. The new CIA document states the agency ârecalled and reissuedâ all its intelligence reporting about al-Libiâs ârecantedâ claims about chemical and biological warfare training by Saddamâs regime in February 2004âan important retreat on pre-Iraq war intelligence that has never been publicly acknowledged by the White House. The withdrawal also was not mentioned in last yearâs public report by the presidential inquiry commission headed by Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Charles Robb which reviewed alleged Iraq intelligence failures. The declassified CIA document about al-Libi was recently provided to Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who has been pressing for a more aggressive investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee into the Bush Administrationâs handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. It has not been officially released because of Senate Intelligence Committee rules restricting public disclosure of information it receives as part of its inquiresâeven if the data has been declassified. Levin did, however, release other material last weekend that he received through his membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee. This included declassified portions of a four-page February 2002 DIA Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary (DITSUM) that strongly questioned al-Libiâs credibility. The report stated it was âlikelyâ al-Libi was âintentionally misleadingâ his debriefers and might be describing scenarios âthat he knows will retain their interest.â A DIA official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the DITSUM reportâwhich also questioned whether the âintensely secularâ Iraqi regime would provide such assistance to an Islamic fundamentalist regime âit cannot controlââwas circulated at the time throughout the U.S. intelligence community and that a copy would have been sent to the National Security Council. In addition to the new issues the latest al-Libi disclosure raises about the handling of pre-war Iraq intelligence, it also raises questions about the reliability of information gleaned from high-value Al Qaeda detainees who have been incarcerated in secret CIA facilities or ârenderedâ to foreign countries where they are believed to have been subjected to harsh and even brutal interrogation techniques. Al-Libi, who was the âemirâ of Al Qaedaâs Khalden training camp in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, was originally captured by U.S. forces in the fall of 2001 and, for a while, was in FBI custody. But according to Jack Cloonan, a former FBI counter-terrorism agent who was involved in the handling of his case, al-Libi became the subject of a heated battle between the FBI and CIA over which agency should retain control of him. In early 2002, Cloonan says, al-Libi was ordered turned over to the CIA and, with his mouth covered by duct tape, the shackled Al Qaeda operative was transferred in a box onto an airplane at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Cloonan says he was later told that al-Libi was flown to Egypt, which CIA officials believed was his country of origin. (In fact, the FBI believed that al-Libi, as his nom de guerre suggests, was actually from Libya.) The CIA, as part of its standard policy relating to its handling of all Al Qaeda captives, has declined to comment on what interrogation methods were used, where al-Libi was taken or where he is now being held (although some reports suggest he has since been transferred to the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.) What is known is that starting in the fall of 2002, al-Libiâs statements to his interrogators became the principal basis for a series of alarming Bush administration assertions about training that Saddamâs regime purportedly provided to Al Qaeda terrorists in the use of chemical and biological weapons. President Bush first referred to the claims in his Oct. 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati where he strongly emphasized Saddamâs ties to international terror groups in general and Al Qaeda in particular. âWeâve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases,â Bush said. (Ironically, this is the same speech that the White House, at the CIAâs request, deleted references to Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium âyellowcakeâ from Africa because of questions about the reliability of the information.) The claim about poison-gas training resurfaced four months later in greatly expanded form during a particularly dramatic portion of then Secretary of State Colin Powellâs Feb. 5, 2003, speech to the UN Security Council that refers exclusively to al-Libiâalthough he is not actually identified by name. Towards the end of his speech, just after a passage that talked about Al Qaedaâs interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction, Powell said he wanted to âtrace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story,â said Powell. âI will relate to you now, as he himself, described it. âThis senior Al Qaeda terrorist was responsible for one of Al Qaedaâs training camps in Afghanistan,â he continued. âHis information comes first hand from his personal involvement at senior levels of Al Qaeda.â Powell then said that Osama bin Laden and one of his deputiesâthe since deceased Mohammed Atefâdid not believe Al Qaeda had the capability to make chemical or biological weapons in Afghanistan on their own. âThey needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq.â Powell then continued, citing the unidentified operativeâs story (from al-Libi) that Iraq offered chemical or biological weapons training to two Al Qaeda associates starting in December 2000. A militant identified as Abu Adula al-Iraqi had also been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases and that the relationship forged with Iraq officials was characterized by al-Iraqi as âsuccessful,â according to Powellâs remarks. (Although it is not entirely clear from Powellâs speech, two U.S. counter-terrorism officials told NEWSWEEK they believe the information about al-Iraqi came exclusively from al-Libi.) Powell concluded this portion of the speech by saying that âthe nexus of poisons and gases is newâ and the combination of the two âis lethal.â In light of âthis track record,â Powell said this about Iraqi denials of support for terrorism: âIt is all a web of lies.â The administrationâs drumbeat citing the claims from al-Libi continued the next day when President Bush gave a brief talk at the Roosevelt Room in the White House with Powell by his side. âOne of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons,â Bush said. âIraq has bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with Al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.â But according to the newly declassified DIA and CIA documents provided to Levin, the credibility of those statements by Bush and Powell were already in doubt within the U.S. intelligence community. While the DIA was the first to raise red flags in its February 2002 report, the CIA itself in January 2003 produced an updated version of a classified internal report called âIraqi Support for Terrorism.â The previous version of this CIA report in September 2002 had simply included al-Libiâs claims, according to the newly declassified agency document provided to Levin in response to his inquiries about al-Libi. But the updated January 2003 version, while including al-Libiâs claims that Al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons and training, added an important new caveat: It ânoted that the detainee was not in a position to know if any training had taken place,â according to the copy of the document obtained by NEWSWEEK. It was not until January 2004ânine months after the war was launchedâthat al-Libi recanted âa number of the claims he made while in detention for the previous two years, including the claim that Al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to obtain chemical and biological weapons and related training,â the CIA document says. Michele Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said that President Bush's remarks were "based on what was put forward to him as the views of the intelligence community" and that those views came from "an aggregation" of sources. She added, however, that it was impossible at this point to determine whether the dissent from the DIA and questions raised by the CIA were seen by officials at the White House prior to the president's remarks. A counter-terrorism official said that while CIA reports on al-Libi were distributed widely around U.S. intelligence agencies and policy-making offices, many such routine reports are not regularly read by senior policy-making officials. For their part, Levin and Sen. Jay Rockefeller want the Senate Intelligence Committee, as part of its reinvigorated Phase II investigation into the handling of Iraq pre-war intelligence, to answer key questions about al-Libi: What happened to the February 2002 DIA report questioning al-Libiâs credibility? Were the CIAâs caveats circulated to the White House before President Bush made his assertions? And why did the intelligence community declassify the substance of al-Libiâs original claims so they could be used in Powellâs speech in February 2003âbut fail to publicly acknowledge that he had recanted until NEWSWEEK reported on it more than a year later? The new documents also raise the possibility that caveats raised by intelligence analysts about al-Libiâs claims were withheld from Powell when he was preparing his Security Council speech. Larry Wilkerson, who served as Powellâs chief of staff and oversaw the vetting of Powellâs speech, responded to an e-mail from NEWSWEEK Wednesday stating that he was unaware of the DIA doubts about al-Libi at the time the speech was being prepared. âWe never got any dissent with respect to those lines you cite ⊠indeed the entire section that now we know came from [al-Libi],â Wilkerson wrote. |
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Home Front: Politix |
Claim Atta was named debated |
2005-09-25 |
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley yesterday denied receiving a Defense Department chart that allegedly identified lead terrorist Mohamed Atta before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, dealing a blow to claims by a Republican congressman that have caused a political uproar in recent weeks. Rep. Curt Weldon (Pa.) wrote in his book, "Countdown to Terror," earlier this year that he provided a chart to Hadley produced in 1999 by the Pentagon's "Able Danger" program, a secret effort to identify terrorists using publicly available data. Weldon said the chart identified Atta in connection with a Brooklyn, N.Y., terrorist cell. That claim was the start of an expanding list of allegations related to Able Danger, that culminated Wednesday with a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee where angry lawmakers accused the Pentagon of a coverup for refusing to allow some witnesses to testify. But a spokesman for Hadley, who has previously declined to comment on Weldon's claims, said yesterday that a search of National Security Council files produced no such documents identifying Atta and that Hadley was not given such a chart by Weldon. "Mr. Hadley does not recall any chart bearing the name or photo of Mohamed Atta," said the spokesman, Frederick L. Jones II. "NSC staff reviewed the files of Mr. Hadley as well as of all NSC personnel" who might have received such a chart. "That search has turned up no chart," he said. Hadley does recall seeing a chart used as an example of "link analysis" -- the technique used by the Able Danger program -- as a counterterrorism tool, but is not sure whether it happened during a Sept. 25, 2001, meeting with Weldon or at another session, Jones said. Weldon's chief of staff, Russ Caso, said that "the congressman sticks by his account" of the meeting, adding that it was understandable Hadley may have forgotten or misplaced the chart, given the demands of his job. "This case is not closed," Caso said. "We are still aggressively trying to track down charts and/or documents. We haven't turned over every rock yet." The NSC findings echo the results of earlier probes into the Able Danger claims by the Sept. 11 commission and the Defense Department, neither of which found documents or other evidence that Atta was identified by the program. Weldon and others who have made the charges have contradicted themselves or provided shifting explanations for important details at the heart of the case, according to interviews, news reports, transcripts and hearing testimony. Investigators and counterterrorism experts also find it improbable -- if not impossible -- that an obscure Defense Department program that used open-source records could identify Atta by name and photograph in early 2000, when he was living in Germany under a different name and had yet to obtain a U.S. visa. Investigators have discovered other charts that include terrorists who are similar in name or appearance to Atta, bolstering the possibility that the entire affair is based on the false recollections of those involved. Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, Navy Capt. Scott Philpott and three civilians affiliated with Able Danger have told Pentagon investigators that they recalled seeing either Atta's name or photograph before Sept. 11, 2001. But no other evidence has emerged to support the claims. Pentagon investigators say they interviewed about 75 others affiliated with Able Danger, none of whom recalled an identification of Atta or other hijackers. Shaffer has conceded that he based his recollection on the memories of others, and the Pentagon says he had contact with the now defunct 18-month project for a total of 27 days. Shaffer's security clearance was formally revoked on Monday for a series of unrelated violations, including allegations that he exaggerated his past actions to obtain a service medal, according to his attorney, Mark S. Zaid. Shaffer denies the allegations and was entitled to the medal, Zaid said yesterday. The Bush administration has fueled the controversy through its responses to various allegations. For example, the Pentagon provided an on-the-record briefing about the issue to reporters earlier this month, but then refused to allow public testimony by Philpott and others at Wednesday's Senate committee hearing. The Pentagon has relented and will allow the witnesses to testify at a second hearing Oct. 5, the judiciary panel announced yesterday. Weldon has alleged that documents proving his claims may have been lost as part of a record-destruction program motivated by concerns over keeping data on U.S. citizens, companies and legal residents. Yet large volumes of Able Danger documents did survive, presumably including the Atta charts that Weldon and others claim to have had in their possession as recently as last year. Weldon has also said he used original data from the Able Danger project to reconstruct charts that he has presented to reporters and to Congress. In his unusual appearance before the judiciary panel Wednesday, Weldon criticized the Pentagon investigation and said Defense Department officials were stonewalling. "My goal now . . . is the same as it was then: the full and complete truth about the run-up to 9/11," Weldon said. Weldon is a controversial figure who is vice chairman of the House homeland security and armed services committees and is known for carrying a replica of a suitcase nuclear bomb. His book, which devoted one paragraph to the claim about Atta, focused primarily on allegations by an Iranian intelligence source whom the CIA has dismissed as a fabricator. The chart that Weldon said he gave to Hadley was one of the enduring mysteries of the controversy. Two others associated with Able Danger, Shaffer and defense contractor James D. Smith, also have said in interviews that they had copies of a pre-Sept. 11 chart that included Atta, but that they were destroyed in 2004 under unclear circumstances. Zaid, who represents both Shaffer and Smith, said Smith's copy was thrown away after it was wrecked while it was being removed from an office wall. Shaffer has said that his copy was among papers destroyed by the Defense Intelligence Agency last year when his clearance was first suspended. While Pentagon investigators never found such a chart, they did uncover two other interesting diagrams: One from 1999 included the name and photograph of Mohammed Atef -- not Atta -- a well-known al Qaeda lieutenant. Another included the photo of a convicted terrorist named Eyad Ismoil, an Egyptian who bears a resemblance to Atta -- and who, unlike Atta, was part of the Brooklyn cell tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Investigators and experts say those two charts could explain how a handful of military officers and civilians may have come to mistakenly believe they identified Atta. Atta's Florida driver's license photo from the summer of 2000 has become an icon of the attacks, and the lead hijacker has been the subject of many dubious claims and sightings. "No evidence turns up to corroborate what people think they saw," former senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), a member of the Sept. 11 commission, wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. ". . . Any investigator can tell you that memories, years after the fact, are faulty." |
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