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Terror Networks
Islamic State second in command likely killed - U.S.
2016-03-26
[SWISSINFO.CH] Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
's second in command and other big shots were likely killed this week in a major offensive targeting its financial operations, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday, the latest setback for the myrmidon group.

Carter told a Pentagon press briefing the United States believes it killed Haji Iman, a big shot in charge of finances for the self-declared caliphate, and Abu Sarah, who Carter said was charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq.

U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the briefing the deaths reflected "indisputable" new momentum in the fight against Islamic State.

U.S. special forces carried out the strike against Haji Iman, officials told Rooters. The original plan was to capture, not kill, him. But after the commandos' helicopter was fired on from the ground, the decision was made to fire from the air, said one of the officials.

Coalition soldiers rarely operate in Islamic State-held parts of Iraq, where there are no friendly forces to help if a mission runs into trouble.

Dunford said he expected to increase the level of U.S. forces in Iraq from the current 3,800 and bolster the capabilities of Iraqi forces preparing for a major offensive against Islamic State in djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, but that those decisions had not been finalized.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said, using another acronym for the group.

The strike comes amid growing pressure on Islamic State, which is steadily losing territory in Iraq and Syria to U.S.-backed forces.

While the operational significance of removing Haji Iman from the battlefield is not yet clear, it is the latest in a series of strikes against the group's top leaders, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, described by the Pentagon as the group's "minister of war," and a senior Islamic State chemical weapons operative captured by Iraq-based U.S. commandos and turned over to the Iraqi government.

Carter said the killing of Haji Iman, who also went by Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and other aliases and who was imprisoned in the region until 2012, would hamper the group's ability to operate inside and outside of Iraq and Syria. But he conceded that alone was not sufficient to cripple it.

"These leaders have been around for a long time. They are senior, they're experienced, and so eliminating them is an important objective and it achieves an important result," he said. "But they will be replaced and we'll continue to go after their leadership and other aspects of their capability."
An Nahar adds:
Al-Qaduli was born in djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, according to Iraqi security sources. He was in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

He joined al-Qaeda in 2004, and became a deputy to the feared Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in 2006 by an American drone strike.

Al-Qaduli was captured and imprisoned, but joined the Islamic State group in Syria after he was freed in 2012.
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India-Pakistan
Al Qaeda's Newest Triggerman
2008-01-06
Newsweak discovers Baitullah Mehsud...
How do you track down a foe without a face? That is the challenge posed by Baitullah Mehsud, the man who could well be the newest Enemy No. 1 in the War on Terror. Since he first emerged as a young jihadist leader three years ago, the black-bearded and slow-talking tribal leader has transformed his Mehsud clan's mountainous badlands in the northwest corner of Pakistan into a safe haven for Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and outlawed Pakistani jihadists. Though uneducated, and only in his mid-30s, Baitullah snookered Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf into a fake peace deal two years ago—and even got him to hand over a few hundred thousand dollars. Just as important, Baitullah has learned the hard lessons of previous jihadists who grew too enamored of the spotlight for their own good. According to Afghan Taliban who know him, he travels in a convoy of pickups protected by two dozen heavily armed guards, he rarely sleeps in the same bed twice in a row, and his face has never been photographed. They say his role model is Mullah Mohammed Omar, the equally mysterious Taliban leader who disappeared from view in 2001.

U.S. officials have distanced themselves somewhat from the Pakistani government's swift—perhaps too swift—conclusion that Baitullah was behind the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The slain former prime minister's Pakistan Peoples Party also disputed that claim, pointing the finger instead at figures within the government. Even Musharraf toned down previous statements from his own officials definitively assigning blame to Baitullah, and late last week he invited Scotland Yard to help with the investigation.
Assuming the intercept that was published was true, it was Baitullah. It having been prepared and published, if it's not true that leads to the inescapable conclusion that the people who prepared and disseminated it -- to whit, the Pak gummint -- are the ones who dunnit.
Still, most U.S. experts agree that Baitullah is the most likely culprit. Musharraf told a press conference last Friday that the tribal leader was behind most if not all of the 19 suicide bombings in Pakistan, including the two aimed at Bhutto, in the past three months. "He is the only one who had the capacity," says one Afghan Taliban with close connections to Mehsud, Al Qaeda and Pakistani militants. (The source, who has proved reliable in the past, would speak only if his identity were protected.)

Last week the Pakistani government produced an intercept in which it claims Baitullah was heard telling a militant cleric after Bhutto's murder: "Fantastic job. Very brave boys, the ones who killed her." Pakistani and U.S. authorities now fear that Baitullah, encouraged by the chaos that followed Bhutto's assassination, will try to wreak more havoc before the rescheduled Feb. 18 national elections.

The Afghan Taliban source claims that Baitullah and his Qaeda allies had laid out remarkably intricate plans for killing Bhutto, who was a champion of secular democracy and a declared enemy of the jihadists.
This year she was. Way back when, she wasn't. Had she lived, there's nothing to say that next year she wouldn't be or would be.
He says Baitullah and Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri—along with Zawahiri's deputy, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, Al Qaeda's new commander of military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan—had dispatched suicide-bomber squads to five cities: Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, where she was killed. Their orders were to follow Bhutto with the aim of assassinating her if an opportunity presented itself. (Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing the investigation, say there are growing indications of Baitullah's involvement in the assassination.)

Baitullah and his allies have even grander plans, the Afghan source says. Her assassination is only part of Zawahiri's long-nurtured plan to destabilize Pakistan and Musharraf's regime, wage war in Afghanistan, and then destroy democracy in other Islamic countries such as Turkey and Indonesia.

Baitullah's alleged emergence as the triggerman in this grand scheme illustrates the mutability of the jihadist enemy since 9/11. As recently as June 2004, Iraq was said to be Al Qaeda's main battleground, and Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi was the terror chieftain whom U.S. authorities worried about most. Baitullah was then a largely unknown subcommander in South Waziristan. But that same month, a U.S. Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone killed Nek Mohammad, the young, dashing and publicity-hungry tribal leader in Waziristan. Al Qaeda and tribal militants promoted the young Baitullah to a command position. His equally young Mehsud clansman, Abdullah Mehsud—a one-legged jihadist who had recently been released from two years of detention in Guantanamo—also seemed to be a rising star. But after the botched kidnapping of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in the tribal area, a local council backed by Al Qaeda removed Abdullah and replaced him with the little-known Baitullah, who was seen as being more levelheaded. (Abdullah was later killed in a shoot-out.)

Since then, Zarqawi has been killed by U.S. forces, Iraq has receded as a haven for Al Qaeda, and Baitullah has come into his own as a terrorist leader in newly unstable Pakistan. Last month a council of militant leaders from the tribal agencies and neighboring areas named Baitullah the head of the newly formed Taliban Movement in Pakistan, a loose alliance of jihadist organizations in the tribal agencies. Taliban sources who would speak only on condition of anonymity describe Baitullah as a key middleman in the jihadist network: his tribesmen provide security for Al Qaeda's rough-hewn training compounds in the tribal area as well as foot soldiers for Qaeda-designed attacks. With a long tradition as smugglers, the tribals (most of whom, like Baitullah, take Mehsud as their surname) run an extensive nationwide trucking and transport network that reaches from the borderlands into teeming cities like Karachi, allowing Baitullah to easily move men and weapons throughout Pakistan...
More detail in the article. Not a bad summary.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria's opponents in Lebanon remain targets
2007-06-16
by Rana Fil
Murder can have unforeseen consequences. Syria's leaders ought to know that by now. A prime example is the car-bomb assassination of the billionaire Lebanese-independence champion Rafik Hariri.

Almost faster than Damascus could deny responsibility for it, his killing launched the Cedar Revolution, a massive Lebanese nationalist uprising that accomplished what Hariri had only dreamed of doing while he lived. Within weeks his death had brought down the pro-Syria puppet government in Beirut. Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, after 29 years of military occupation.

And yet the killings—and Syria's denials of involvement in any of them—continue. Since Hariri's death, seven anti-Syrian political figures have been killed in Lebanon, including three members of Parliament. The most recent was Walid Eido, 65. Late on the afternoon of June 13, a bomb ripped through his black Mercedes on a side street in Beirut, killing the legislator along with his 35-year-old son, two bodyguards and six passers-by. The death of Eido reduced the Lebanese Parliament's anti-Damascus majority to 68 seats in a total 128—actually a total of 126, since there was one vacancy even before this killing created another. President Emile Lahoud, a holdover from before the Cedar Revolution, has blocked efforts to fill the seat that was held by cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel until he was gunned down in a road ambush last November. The pro-Syrian president's successor is to be chosen in September, and in Lebanon it's the Parliament that does the choosing. Now there's one fewer vote for the anti-Damascus side.

But violence against the Lebanese government has moved beyond assassinations to armed conflict. A small but heavily armed jihadist group calling itself Fatah al-Islam has been battling the Lebanese Army in and around Tripoli since the third weekend in May. The fighting, centered on Nahr el-Bared—the Palestinian refugee camp closest to Syria's border—erupted three days after the United States, France and Great Britain began circulating a draft U.N. resolution for creation of a tribunal for suspects in the Hariri assassination. As always, the Syrians deny any part in the violence, but many Lebanese say the connection is obvious. "Nahr el-Bared is the implementation of Syrian official talk of turning Lebanon into hell if the international tribunal moves ahead," says parliamentarian Elias Atallah, in a comment echoed by others in his bloc.

Fatah al-Islam has an estimated 350 jihadists from all over the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia and Morocco. Lebanese police say many of the group's fighters spent time in Iraq before infiltrating into Lebanon via Syria. Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, the Parliament's majority leader, is unwavering in his conviction that Syria is behind Fatah al-Islam. "I would understand if two or three of them arrive at the Damascus Airport and slip through immigration," says Hariri. "But when we're talking of so many, including Syrians, there is a huge question mark on how and why the Syrian intelligence did not intercept them."

Many Fatah al-Islam leaders are said to have spent time in Syrian jails before arriving in Lebanon, according to Gen. Ashraf Rifi, the head of Lebanon's internal security forces. "They were released from Syrian jails by special amnesty,'' Rifi says. Lebanese officials believe the former prisoners got their freedom on condition that they begin working for Syria's intelligence services. The group's leader, a Palestinian named Shaker Absi, served three years behind bars in Syria on weapons charges. In 2004 a Jordanian military court sentenced him in absentia to death for the October 2002 murder of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, but Syria refused to send its prisoner to Jordan. (One of Absi’s codefendants was Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the bloodthirsty Jordanian-born jihadist who founded and led Al Qaeda in Iraq until his death in an American air strike in 2006.)

Senior Lebanese officials say Fatah al-Islam began as Fatah al-Intifada, a Syrian-aligned group established in the 1980s as an offshoot of Yasir Arafat's Fatah organization. In the summer of 2006, amid the chaos of Israel's war on Hezbollah, Absi showed up in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps and Fatah al-Intifada began to grow, according to Ahmad Fatfat, then-acting Interior minister. The new militants worried other camp residents, who wanted no bloodshed around their homes. Nevertheless, fighting finally broke out in September 2006 between Fatah al-Intifada and people in Beddawi, a camp outside Tripoli. After one Palestinian died, Beddawi residents apprehended two Fatah al-Intifada militants and handed them over to Lebanese authorities.

Absi and his followers soon changed their group's name to Fatah al-Islam. Lebanon's Communications minister, Marwan Hamadeh —himself the target of an assassination attempt just months before Hariri was killed—says the renaming came after Lebanese authorities received intelligence that Damascus had begun sending "the same suicide bombers it sends to Iraq" to Lebanon. "They wanted to make it look as if it was a pure Al Qaeda operation," he said. "Some of the elements probably believe they work for Al Qaeda but the command is under Syrian control." Captured Fatah al-Islam fighters have allegedly confessed to receiving military training at bases run by the pro-Syrian radical Palestinian group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. "We have no ties with Fatah al-Islam," says Ramez Mostafa, the PFLP-GC's top man in Lebanon. "The [Lebanese] government is using those events to aim at our weapons."

Syria's parliamentary friends accuse Hariri of having his own militant connections, particularly in the south Lebanon town of Taamir, where the group Jund al-Sham ("Soldiers of Damascus") is based. Hariri says he has given money in Taamir—to help the poor, not the militants. He says he built roads and clinics there to give the inhabitants an alternative to joining the militants. "We worked hard to give people dignity and responsibility in this neighborhood where people live in desperate poverty," he says. "If you give them hope, they see that there is a way out."

Meanwhile, the fighting in the north may actually be helping to bring the people of Lebanon together. Many Palestinians have distanced themselves from the militants, according to Sultan Abu al-Aynayn, the commander of Fatah in Lebanon. And Jihad Zein, opinion editor at an-Nahar newspaper, believes the violence has actually increased support for the army across the Lebanese political spectrum. "Even the nuanced position of Hezbollah does not represent the Shiite public mood, which has traditionally been with the army," he said in an interview. Many observers regard that development as a sign of major progress. "An army is the first building block of a state," says Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. "The reappearance of the national army means the reappearance of the cornerstone of a potential sovereign Lebanese state." Somewhere, Rafik Hariri may be smiling.
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Iraq
Iraqi security forces: Abu Omar al-Baghdadi detained
2007-03-05
Reported yesterday. Still no confirmation. That's usually a bad sign...
A suspected leader of the group Islamic State in Iraq, which has ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, was detained in northern Iraq on Sunday, Iraqi security forces reported. Muharib Mohammed Abdullah, aka Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, was arrested in a joint raid by Iraqi and US soldiers in the city of Duluiya. "This is a great success for the Iraqi security forces, comparable to the killing of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi," the Salaheddin provincial administration in the town of Tikrit said in a statement.

UPDATE: Baghdad, 5 March (AKI) - The man considered the number two of "The Islamic State in Iraq" affiliated to al-Qaeda, has been arrested in Duluiya, 90 kilometres north of Baghdad, the Iraqi interior ministry said Monday. Abdullah Latif al-Jaburi - known by the alias Abu Abdullah - was picked up at the end of a blitz carried out by US and Iraqi forces on Sunday. Initially the Iraqi security forces thought they had captured Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the group established last year with the proclaimed aim of establishing an Islamic state in Iraq, bringing together various insurgency groups.
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Iraq
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi Busted Near Tikrit
2007-03-04
A suspected leader of the group Islamic State in Iraq, which has ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, was detained in northern Iraq on Sunday, Iraqi security forces reported. Muharib Mohammed Abdullah, aka Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, was arrested in a joint raid by Iraqi and US soldiers in the city of Duluiya. "This is a great success for the Iraqi security forces, comparable to the killing of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi," the Salaheddin provincial administration in the town of Tikrit said in a statement.

Abdullah is a former legal expert from the city of Balad, north of Baghdad. The Islamic State in Iraq organization claimed responsibility Saturday for the murder of 18 policemen.
Picked up this link from FreeRepublic
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Iraq
Al-Qaeda ups anti-Iranian rhetoric
2006-11-24
Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been branded a "worshipper of idols, an agent of the anti-Christ," and "charlatan" by Iraqi al-Qaeda leader Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir in a statement made earlier this month, the full text of which has now become available. The message, which also contained threats to blow up the White House, forms another escalation in al-Qaeda's increasingly hostile anti-Iranian rhetoric, that has also targeted Hizbullah .

Discussing the actions of US President Bush, Muhajir said in the statement, released by al-Qaeda's al-Furqan Foundation, translated into English by the Al-Boraq Workshop, and reproduced on the Jihad Unspun website :
"He (Bush) turned to the Sham (Syria and Lebanon ) and terrorized its tyrant (Basher Assad), who is a Rafidi (Shiite) and a Nusayri (one of Shiite's factions). The blockade continued until he (Assad) had to open his country to hundreds and thousands of Persians to acquire citizenship in it, (so the they can) support the charlatan agent of the anti-Christ, Nasr Allat (a common nickname for Hizbullah's Nasrallah, and meaning a supporter and worshipper of Idols) who is called Nasrallah..."
"Hence, the Old Persian Empire has become complete, extending from the countries behind the river, Iran and Iraq… to the Sham (Syria and Lebanon)," Muhajir said.

The al-Qaeda leader said the United States had become an agent for Iran. "I wonder whether the wise of Romans (Americans) realize that they have become slaves and mercenaries for Persia, and that they are fighting Persia's battles for free," he said.

On November 17, Sunni al-Qaeda followers in Lebanon released a statement on the internet calling on Lebanese Sunnis to prepare for an imminent confrontation. According to the SITE Institute , a website which monitors Islamist web activity, the statement also said:"Let the Rafidi (Shiites) know that we are ready to fight them with Allah's help and let it be a war. We are more eager for it than they."

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda in Iraq has declared the establishment of a Caliphate (Islamic State), in anticipation of the withdrawal of US troops from the region. "In a long waited step, for which sacrifices were granted and martyrs bloods were shed to achieve its path; the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq has announced the establishment of the 'Islamic State of Iraq,' the state of Islam that will rule the law of Allah on people and lands, that will protect the core (center) of Islam and acts as a solid shield for the Sunni people on the land of Iraq," al-Qaeda said in a statement, published on the newly created Caliphate Voice Channel website .

The al-Qaeda site also accused Shiites of working with the United States to kill former Iraqi al-Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. "O monotheist Muslims… O Mujahideen across the world; today we announce the end of a stage of Jihad and the start of a new one, in which we lay the first cornerstone of the Islamic Caliphate project and revive the glory of religion," Muhajir declared.
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Home Front: WoT
Osama shown with 9/11 attackers
2006-09-07
A VIDEO tape showing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden apparently meeting the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks has been aired for the first time today.

Arab television channel Al-Jazeera broadcast the tape just days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the deadly strikes on US cities and as the US Senate agreed to fund a new intelligence unit to hunt down bin Laden.

Al-Jazeera said the footage documented the "daily life" of al-Qaeda operatives as they trained and prepared for the attacks in the mountains of Afghanistan.

In one scene bin Laden is seen greeting a fighter against the backdrop of a mountain.

The video is said to feature two of the 19 Islamist militants that took part in the 9/11 attacks, Saudi nationals Hamza el-Ramdi and Wael el-Shemari.

They speak of the situation faced by Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya.

Fifteen of the 19 attackers on September 11 were Saudis, and Al-Jazeera said it had only aired a few minutes of a document that lasted about an hour-and-a-half.

The footage also shows hand-to-hand combat practice between people wearing masks over their heads.

As the film went to air, the US Senate unanimously approved an additional $US200 million to this year's defence budget to fund an intelligence unit that would seek to hunt down bin Laden.

The measure, approved by a vote of 96 to 0, also requires the US Defence Department to report to Congress every three months about progress made toward apprehending bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The legislation was prepared by Democrats Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan as an amendment to the 2007 Defence Appropriations Bill being debated in the Senate this week.

"Osama bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda, planned, financed and organised a terrorist operation that killed thousands of Americans. It has now been more than 1800 days since those attacks, and this man is still on the loose," said Mr Conrad.

"The Senate agrees that it is chief among our priorities in the war on terror to bring the mastermind behind September 11 to the justice that a mass murderer deserves," he said.

"Our amendment makes certain that bringing Osama bin Laden to justice will be one of our country's most important priorities, and that he is pursued with real energy and with focus, clarity and a specific set of goals," said Mr Dorgan.

Al-Jazeera today also broadcast a recording attributed to the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, in which he said he was sure of victory against US-led forces in the country.

The recording was also posted on an Islamist Internet site, but its authenticity could not be immediately established.

In the internet statement, Muhajer urges Sunni Muslims to kill at least one US citizen within the next two weeks.

"Oh followers of (Taliban leader) Mullah Mohammed Omar, oh sons of (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden, oh disciples of (slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader) Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi ... I urge each of you to kill at least one American within a period not exceeding 15 days," he says.

"I do not doubt for an instant victory (against US-led forces in Iraq)."

Muhajer calls President George W. Bush a "liar" and a "dog".
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Iraq
Video shows mutilated US soldiers
2006-07-11
THE Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda has put on the Internet a video showing the mutilated bodies of two US soldiers kidnapped in June and executed to "avenge" an Iraqi woman raped near Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad. "Here is a film on the remains of the bodies of the two American soldiers kidnapped near Yussufiyah (south of Baghdad). We are showing it to avenge our sister who was raped by a soldier belonging to the same division as these two soldiers," said a preamble by the Mujahedeen Al-Shura Council, an al-Qaeda dominated alliance of armed Sunni groups in Iraq.

When guerillas learned of the rape, "they repressed their sighs to avoid news of the affair spreading but they swore to avenge their sister", the council said on its usual website. "Praise God, they captured two soldiers from the same division as this vile crusader. Here are the remains ... to rejoice the hearts of the faithful," the statement said.

The nearly five-minute film shows the horribly mutilated bodies of the two soldiers, who had had their throats cut. The head of one of them was held high by an armed man, like a trophy. The head of the other was being stamped on by another armed man.

The film is accompanied by extracts of old speeches by the head of the al-Qaeda terror group, Osama bin Laden, and the ex-head of its Iraqi wing Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who was killed June 7 by the US Army. The Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda said on June 20 that it had executed the two US soldiers whose bodies were found south of Baghdad.
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Terror Networks
Osama Needs More Mud Huts
2006-05-07
Global Islamic terrorism is the product of scattered groups. It has much less support in the Muslim world than people think.

Imagine if a few months after September 11 someone had said to you, "Five years from now, in the space of a single week, Osama bin Laden will issue a new call for worldwide jihad, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq will threaten a brutal, endless war, and there will be two terror attacks in Egypt." Chances are you would have been quite unnerved. Yet the most striking aspect of last week's news was the reaction to it—very little.

Radical Islamic terror made big, violent and scary moves and — whether you judge it by media coverage, stock-market movements or international responses — the world yawned.

Al Qaeda Central, by which I mean the dwindling band of brothers on the Afghan-Pakistani border, appears to have turned into a communications company. It's capable of producing the occasional jihadist cassette, but not actual jihad. I know it's risky to say this, as Qaeda leaders may be quietly planning some brilliant, large-scale attack. But the fact that they have not been able to do one of their trademark blasts for five years is significant in itself.

Moreover, bin Laden's latest appeals have a very changed character. His messages used to be lyrical, sharp and highly intelligent. They operated at a high plane, rarely revealing anything about Al Qaeda's operations. In fact, intelligence agencies looked for small signs—an offhand reference, an item of apparel—to reveal where Al Qaeda would strike next. Bin Laden's most recent appeal is a mishmash of argument and detail, and seems slightly crazed. He has broadened his verbal attacks against the "Zionist-Crusaders" to include the United Nations and China. The latter he condemns because it "represents the Buddhists and Pagans of the world."

Like Hitler crazily declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor, bin Laden is adding to his slew of formidable enemies: China was the only major world power that was unconcerned about him. (And his reference to the United Nations as a "Zionist-Crusader tool" would surely surprise most Israelis.) Bin Laden also makes some plaintive appeals to Muslims to rise up and attack the "crusaders" in the west of Sudan. This shows desperation because there are no "crusaders" in Sudan. The troops there are African Union peacekeepers. But more interestingly, the victims in Darfur are Muslim. Bin Laden's real objective appears to be to support the government in Sudan—which once housed him—as it brutally exterminates tribes that oppose it. What does this have to do with Islam? Most revealingly, bin Laden makes a parochial appeal for foreign aid, to help those Qaeda supporters in Waziristan who have been rendered homeless by Pakistani Army attacks. That suggests he and his friends are having a rough time. Strip away the usual hot air, and bin Laden's audiotape is the sign of a seriously weakened man.

It is now widely accepted that Al Qaeda Central no longer has much to do with the specific terrorist attacks—even the most bloody ones, in Madrid, Sinai and London—that have taken place in the past three years. These appear to be the work of smaller, local groups, often inspired by Al Qaeda but not directed by it. The result of this decentralization, however, is that the attacks lack coherence and strategic sense. Al Qaeda Central would attack large symbolic targets (the World Trade Center) or government facilities (embassies, ships), but smaller groups do what they can, going after cafés, hotels and train stations. The result—local civilians die, which enrages the public. After a while the attacks also begin to feel less cataclysmic. People realize that life goes on. In Egypt, the stock market shrugged off last week's terror attacks; hotels in Sinai (where the bombs exploded) reported a small number of cancellations, and the public seemed increasingly angry at the terror groups.

Next in the communications department is Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's appearance, and for the first time we got to see his face. Zarqawi's motive in doing this is debated, but almost certainly it was an effort to show that he is still relevant. Conditions in Iraq are bloody and dangerous, but they also might be moving out of his control. Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are struggling, both on the ground and across the table, to see if they can live together. Whatever they decide about this power-sharing arrangement, Zarqawi's appeals for jihad seem beside the point and appeal to a dwindling number of Iraqis.

The danger from global Islamic terrorism is real. But it is the product of small and scattered groups, spewing hate. It has much less support in the Muslim world than people think. There is much to be distressed about in that world—oppressive regimes, reactionary social views, illiberal political parties, mindless and virulent anti-Americanism. But these trends are not the same as support for jihad or for a Taliban-like Islamic state. And it is the latter—terror and theocracy—that are Al Qaeda's basic goals. The evidence suggests that they are not gaining adherents.

The West, and the United States in particular, has a long history of seeing the enemy as 10 feet tall—think of Soviet Russia and Saddam Hussein. But as we paint Al Qaeda in those lofty terms, let's please remember last week, when Osama bin Laden appealed on a crackling audiotape for a little money to build a few huts in Waziristan.
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Iraq
Khalizhad in talks with hard boyz
2006-04-07
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has said US officials have held talks with some groups linked to the Sunni-led Iraqi insurgency. Mr Khalilzad told the BBC that, in his opinion, the talks had had an impact as the number of attacks on US troops by Iraqi militants had fallen. But he stressed he would not negotiate with "Saddamists" or terrorists seeking a war on civilisation.
Mr Khalilzad also warned a civil war in Iraq remained a real risk.

Mr Khalilzad would not specify which groups the US had had contact with other than to say it would not talk to people he called "Saddamists" or terrorists seeking a war on civilisation. That is usually a reference to al-Qaeda figures such as the Jordanian militant, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. However, the ambassador said militia groups, which he described as the infrastructure of civil war, were just as much of a problem.

Mr Khalilzad is seen as one of the architects of US President George W Bush's decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein three years ago. He has been more prepared than most US officials to admit things have not worked out as planned. He said the risk of sectarian war breaking out in Iraq remains if ethnic divisions between its Kurdish and majority Arab population developed, and warned it could turn into a wider regional conflict.

"Iraq must succeed," he said. "Not to do everything humanely possible to make this country work would have the most serious consequences for the Iraqis, for sure, but also for the region and for the world." With talks over forming a new Iraqi government still deadlocked almost four months after elections, the ambassador said the patience of the international community with the country's political leaders was running out.

Mr Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan, was the US ambassador there before his current posting. Asked if Iraq could do with a political figure who could reach across ethnic and sectarian divides, similar to the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, he agreed such a person would be an asset.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iranian reformist confirms al-Qaeda in Iran, protected by IRGC
2006-03-23
One day after a US daily reported that American intelligence officials believe the Iranian regime is hosting al-Qaeda militants and allowing senior operatives to help plan the network's operations, an Iranian source close to the reformists confirmed the report to Adnkronos International (AKI). "With the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad relations with al-Qaeda have been resumed and strengthened," said the source, who used to work for Iran's intelligence services under the government of Mohammed Khatami.

The Los Angeles Times said US intelligence officials cited evidence from highly classified satellite feeds and electronic eavesdropping as proof that the recently elected Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be forging an alliance with the terrorist network's operatives as a way to expand Iran's influence. The report said the president might also simply be looking the other way as al-Qaeda leaders in Iran cooperate with their counterparts abroad.

According to the source consulted by AKI, around 100 members of the terrorist organisation are living in Iran under the protection of the Pasdaran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Soleyman Abu Gaith, Seif al-Adel, Abdullah Mohammad Rajab, Abdulaziz al-Masri and Abu Mohammed al-Masri are men close to al-Qaeda currently in Iran, according to the United States. The former intelligence official told AKI the list also included "three children and two wives of Osama bin Laden." He also recalled that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri recently visited the Islamic Republic "to meet with three envoys of Jordan's Abu Mussab al Zarqawi."

Ties between Iran and al-Qaeda were highlighted by the US September 11 commission, which disclosed many details on possible connections in its final report. The commission said Iran and the terrorist group had worked together sporadically in the 1990s, reportedly trading secrets on how to make explosives.

Many al-Qaeda operatives and family members, however, have reportedly lived in Iran since 2001, when they fled the US-led bombing of Afghanistan.

Iran declared four months ago that no al-Qaeda members live in the country, though officials have in the past claimed that some members of the terror network are kept under house arrest and their activities monitored.
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Iraq
Chaos in Iraq plays into Zarq's hand
2006-03-20
By Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of the anti-American al-Quds al-Arabi (Arab Jerusalem) paper and as big a fan of Osama's as you could possibly hope for. Edited for spittle and neocon conspiracy quackdom.
The Feb. 22 bombing of the golden mosque in Samarra - considered one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines - triggered the unprecedented levels of sectarian violence currently under way in Iraq. The hand behind this strike at the Shiite majority in all probability points to Al Qaeda, intent on fomenting the low-level civil strife that has churned for months into something far greater.

A full-out civil war in Iraq would strengthen Al Qaeda's growing reach in Iraq. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in this Land of the Two Rivers, has long expressed a vitriolic hatred for the "heretic and atheist" Shiites, the "secret allies of the Americans." In a June 15, 2004, letter to Osama bin Laden, Mr. Zarqawi described Shiites as "a sect of treachery and betrayal through the ages."

He had earlier claimed responsibility for the assassination of Iraqi Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim in August 2003. And his expressed hatred for the Shiites leads me to believe he was also behind the March 2, 2004, massacre of 185 Shiite pilgrims in Karbala and Baghdad and a string of other attacks on Shiite civilians. Studying this pattern of aggression reveals that Zarqawi's strategy to create such internal chaos to the detriment of US troops and the Iraqi military is indeed being carried out.

Thus it is highly likely that Zarqawi's group carried out the bombing of the golden mosque in Samarra last month. The Shiite majority, who have most to gain from maintaining stability in Iraq, have to this point exercised some restraint in retaliating against attacks on their members, but the destruction of one of their most sacred shrines unleashed a wave of reprisals and summary executions that has already resulted in hundreds (if not thousands) of Sunni and Shiite deaths.

In a letter to Zarqawi dated June 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. bin Laden's deputy, questioned whether targeting Shiite civilians might alienate the more moderate Sunni element from Al Qaeda. Zarqawi, however, disregarded such concerns, reasoning that in the event of the all-out civil war he hopes for, moderate and radical differences will disappear - a prognosis that may well prove gruesomely correct.

Zarqawi's rationale is threefold: Civil war in Iraq will undermine the current political process by preventing the engagement of Sunni factions and unseating the Shiite leaders; it will render the country ungovernable and ensure the failure of the United States project in the region; finally, an expanded conflict would draw on the huge reserves of Sunni Muslim military support available in neighboring countries - either on a national level or in terms of individual mujahideen pouring into Iraq to protect fellow Sunnis from annihilation at the hands of Iran-backed Shiite militia.

Sectarian civil strife could rapidly spread throughout the region. Many Sunni leaders are already unnerved by the growing influence of Shiite Iran in Iraqi internal affairs, and sectarian tensions have been brewing in several countries including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. Civil war in Iraq may well prompt the Kurds to declare independence, drawing Turkey into the arena.

All of this is in keeping with the five-stage plan posted on the Internet in March 2005 by Al Qaeda's main military strategist, Mohammed Makkawi, who described the third stage thus: "expand the [Iraqi] conflict throughout the region and engage the US in a long war of attrition ... create a jihad Triangle of Horror starting in Afghanistan, running through Iran and Southern Iraq then via southern Turkey and south Lebanon to Syria."

Al Qaeda's project, meanwhile, is one of destructive anarchy with the aim of removing the US and corrupt dictatorships from the region in order to clear the way for its ultimate goal: uniting the Muslim world under one Islamic leader, or caliph.

Al Qaeda has become a major player in the Middle East, having been virtually wiped out in Afghanistan after 9/11. This is entirely because of the US invasion of Iraq, which provided Zarqawi's fledgling mujahideen with a new haven and training ground, and inflamed the jihadi spirit in thousands of young men who flock to join him every week.

It is possible that Zarqawi has overestimated the cohesive effect of the sectarian conflict among the various Sunni factions in the present insurgency. The eventual loyalty of the large Baathist element in the insurgency is another unknown.

However, a regenerated Al Qaeda is flourishing and expanding. With its new horizontal structure, it has loosely affiliated "branches" in several regions including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Europe. It now represents a real threat to both oil production and Israel, the twin pillars of America's foreign policy.

Iraq has become a magnet for radicalism as it heads toward fragmentation. The situation for the US military is increasingly dangerous. America is already engaged in a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program; if this escalates, as seems increasingly likely, the nearly 140,000 US soldiers in Iraq will become hostages at the mercy of their present allies, the Iran-backed Shiite militia, and their current enemies, the Sunni insurgent groups and Al Qaeda. The risk for the US has to be that those who are divided on sectarian grounds in Iraq will briefly pause in their destruction of each other to turn on a new, common enemy.

For Al Qaeda, everything is going entirely according to plan.
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