Signs of Life (Maybe) from Omar Hammami

Omar Hammami in a video posted online this morning.

A previously unseen video from Alabama-born jihadist Omar Hammami was posted to YouTube early this morning.

In the video, titled "An Urgent Message," Hammami speaks for three minutes in Arabic. He appears to be sitting in the same room and wearing the same clothes as he was in the last video he posted online from Somalia nearly seven months ago.

Update: Hammami alive, speaks with Current TV

According to Somali journalists, the video appears to expand on the plea for help Hammami posted in that video, which indicated Al Shabab wanted to kill him. According to their translations, the newly released video is addressed to Al Qaeda and senior jihadists to inform them that foreign fighters in Somalia are experiencing problems with Al Shabab. He also said Shabab is not ready to carry out jihad on an international level. Hammami also asks for help in leaving Somalia, they said.

The video's caption reads "Waiting around to see how things develop. Stay tuned!" The video was also posted without further comment on a Twitter account used by an individual claiming to be Hammami's "PR rep."

Hammami has not been heard from since May, when he abruptly stopped communicating due to African Union forces fighting the Al Qaeda-linked militia Al Shabab in his vicinity. His last direct communication was with Christof Putzel of CurrentTV. His "PR rep" stopped emailing me at the same time.

In an interview with me for Foreign Policy in May, Hammami's "PR rep" expanded on the American jihadist's complaints about al Shabaab and said the Somali militia had not yet killed Hammami because it was "too messy politically."

"Things can't be done in the open, and he hasn't given them any opportunities to create an 'accident'," he said. The interview took place around the time Hammami posted "part 1" of his text autobiography and an audio lecture on the political priorities of jihadist movements, which he believed was partially responsible for his troubles.
In early October, the Washington Post ran a story suggesting Hammami was "on the run," but the assertion was weakly sourced.

This post has been updated.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

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Labels: Abu-Mansour-Al-Amriki, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, Jihad-Joe, Omar-Hammami, Somalia

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The Content and Context of Anwar Awlaki's E-mails with Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hasan

Probably the most difficult, bedeviling problem in combating terrorism through law enforcement is interpreting the words of suspects to divine their real intentions, then to build a case from that interpretation.

It seems to me that this issue is exemplified by the long-withheld e-mail exchange between the radical American cleric Anwar Awlaki and the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan.

My friend Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has a new entry over at Gunpowder and Lead, with Lauren Morgan, outlining the case for rating the e-mail exchange as a high threat and arguing that it should have prompted more aggressive investigative action. The post was prompted by a question from Charles Cameron.

I waited for this post before ringing in, because I wanted to see if I would be swayed by Daveed's argument, which he broadly telegraphed on Twitter last week. While we ultimately reach the same conclusion -- that the FBI and Defense Department should have investigated Hasan more aggressively -- we get there by a different path and with somewhat different areas of emphasis.

I'm not going to summarize the G&L post, which you should read before proceeding, precisely because it so thorough in its treatment of the question. But therein lies the rub. We're scrutinizing these emails and how they were handled. Why? Because we now know one person involved carried out a horrific act of terrorism and the other became a top Al Qaeda propagandist.

Nothing in Daveed's argument is wrong and it all falls within the scope of what he and Lauren set out to examine. There are clearly markers of concern in these e-mails, and the fact they involve an active duty military officer and a known radicalizer with links to September 11 is alone sufficient reason for the Washington Field Office to have escalated the case, at least to the point of an interview with Hasan and his immediate superiors.

But I think there are distractions lurking here, which move us away from what actually went wrong and what lessons we should learn.

I want to raise two key issues in this respect, because I think it's hard to really understand the case without them. This doesn't negate the points raised by Daveed and Lauren, but I feel that the context here is so important that it's misleading to consider the issue without acknowledging them.

The first issue has to do with the relationship between the FBI's San Diego and Washington Field Offices. If you read the more thorough Senate Homeland Security Committee report, the more telling Webster Commission Report, and records released by the 9/11 Commission, you don't have to squint very hard between the lines to see there were political tensions between the two offices, which I have also heard from multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.

Much of this tension specifically revolved around Awlaki and long preceded the Hasan emails. The Awlaki investigation ping-ponged back and forth between the two offices like a hot potato since 2001. These tensions resulted in strained and often inadequate communication between the two branches, which creates inertia and resistance and obstacles to effective, objective functioning.

This doesn't excuse the handling of the case. If anything, an institutional management failure is more damnable than a simple oversight or misinterpretation. But the testy relationship between the offices, clearly illuminated in the Webster report, has little to do with the content of the investigation.

When we're looking for lessons learned, it's my opinion (based on what we know today) that the will to analyze may have been a larger issue than the approach to analysis.

The characterization of the e-mails by unnamed officials as "fairly benign," which Daveed rightly attacks, was an after-the-fact effort at spin. It deserves to be refuted but also points to the second issue.

Anyone who has spent time with raw intelligence knows that you have to triage leads. For every intercept that states "I've bought the fertilizer and I'm loading it in the truck tonight down by the lake," there are literally thousands and thousands that say "I hate America," "I love Al Qaeda," "I'd like to kill those bastards," "I swear to God it's time for action and not words," "If I was James Holmes, here's how I would have done it better," "You need to start mentally preparing now to kill your neighbors when the revolution comes," and "Would you consider someone like Hasan Akbar to be fighting jihad, and if he died would he be a martyr?" (All of the above are paraphrases of actual extremist content I've reviewed.)

The words of suspects -- whether recounted in e-mails, phone intercepts, informant reports, or online postings -- must be interpreted and prioritized relative to dozens or hundreds or thousands of other leads. This can be a science if you're a trained FBI profiler, but it's strictly an art if you're anyone else. Zach Chesser's online output, to the layman, was pretty alarming and seemed to indicate he might try to act out violently on U.S. soil, but he never did. And even profilers cannot read intent from most verbal and written content with absolute reliability.

Based on who Hasan was (a military officer), who he was talking to (a suspected 9/11 accomplice), and the fact he repeatedly tried to get Awlaki's attention using a variety of stratagems, the case should have been escalated and Hasan's superiors should have been informed.

But when you place the content of Hasan's messages alongside all the other raw intelligence that counterterrorism investigations generate, it's extremely hard to argue from a subjective, non-psychoanalytical reading that they represented a red flag.

Even putting aside the broad universe of raw intelligence, consider just the workload generated by the Awlaki Web site intercept and what we don't know about the nature of that content.

If you get 60 leads per day featuring people writing to Awlaki, are half asking what concrete steps they can take to participate in jihad? Are the other half are oblique in the same way Hasan was oblique? Which would you prioritize?

Hasan's e-mails didn't exist in a vacuum; they competed for attention with an unknown number of other e-mails featuring unknown content from Awlaki's Web site but also his email accounts as well as traffic from other investigations. The Webster report indicates that two San Diego analysts were processing an average of 65 to 70 electronic intercepts per day. Although it does not specify if all of those were related to Awlaki, other figures quoted in the report would be consistent with that conclusion. (H/T @emptywheel) The exact content distribution is unknown.

It's difficult to separate hindsight from our analysis. We approach these emails looking for evidence of Hasan's intentions, but we already know his actual intentions. If we read the thousands of e-mails generated during the period Hasan was corresponding with Awlaki, without any names attached, would we pick Hasan's messages as the most important? Would they even make the top 10 or the top 100? I suspect they would not.

It would be interesting to approach this subject from the perspective of a blind study, analyzing dozens of unlabeled intercepts -- some from people who went on to act violently, and some from people who did not. I'd bet serious money such an experiment would be a massive failure and would not reliably identify which subjects became violent and which did not.

Without such a study in hand (and if you have one, please send), we need to acknowledge the lack of hard data correlating different types of talk with physical action and the subjectivity of the exercise. The content certainly informs our understanding, but I don't think it leads to a "lesson learned" moment.

I don't disagree with the content markers noted by Daveed and Lauren, but I think it's a mistake to say those markers can be interpreted with much certainty without the benefit of hindsight. I'm not claiming this is their actual argument -- I think they're arguing to include context -- but I came away from reading the piece feeling that there was too much emphasis on the content and too much certainty about its significance.

It is, of course, important to understand and study content, but you can't point to a reference to Hasan Akbar in a vacuum and say it's significant, unless you've looked at a constellation of similar references and attempted to correlate them to action.

I don't think this particular example illustrates useful investigative triggers that are likely to result in improved screening, and I don't think it illustrates a systemic failure that requires correction. The "lesson learned" is that the context of the messages should have escalated the investigation (and prompted more attention to the content).

If the content of the Hasan e-mails represents a threshold for escalated investigative concern, we're going to need a whole lot more FBI agents. I see dozens of online postings and messages per day that are far more worrisome than these e-mails, yet it is extraordinarily rare for these posts to connect with terrorist acts in any way. We need more study of how talk correlates to action, but the art of textual interpretation is not simple and rarely leads to black-and-white answers.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.


This post was updated at 1:47 p.m. 

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Fort-Hood, Jihad-Joe, Nidal-Malik-Hasan

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Anwar Awlaki E-Mail Exchange With Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hasan

I listened to a lecture that made a parallel between Iblis and the People of the book and was wondering if it was consistent with what the Quran teaches. He basically stated that Allah (SWT) speaks the truth and should always be obeyed. He told the story of how Allah (SWT) told Adam (AS) to take Shaitan as an enemy and toldy him to stay away from the tree. Shaitan told Adam that he was his well wisher and the only reason the tree was denied him because it would make him an angel or live forever. So Adam listened to Shaitan and neglected the heedings of his lord. He goes on to say that Allah (SWT) warns us not to take the people of the book as protecting friends (aulia) and the lecturer stated that if we ignore Allah (SWT) like Adam we will have no exuse if we end up in hell fire because of the advice given by the people of the book. He explains that some of the people of the book are sincere in their advice but are ignorant and if you listen to sincere ignorant advice over Allah (SWT) you fall at your own peril. V/R Nidal


For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Fort-Hood, lone-wolf, Nidal-Malik-Hasan

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Two E-Mails From Anwar Awlaki

The following two letters from Anwar Awlaki were read aloud in court during the trial of British Airways worker Rajib Karim, who wrote to Awlaki seeking to join him as a fighter in Yemen. Awlaki wrote back in the two emails below encouraging Karim to abandon his plans to emigrate to Yemen and instead plot terrorism against airlines from his position in the U.K. (See previous INTELWIRE story.)

Fox News obtained transcripts from Karim's trial as part of a special report airing tonight on Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter.  The e-mails were read aloud in court and transcribed by a stenographer without Arabic language skills. As a result, while the emails below are nearly verbatim, some Arabic words were transcribed incomprehensibly. Many thanks to Aaron Zelin of Jihadology.net and Humera Khan of Muflehun for deciphering some of the terms. Notes for phonetic and indiscernible are sprinkled throughout.

The letters offer a fascinating look at Awlaki's priorities and tactics in dealing with a new recruit.

• Can you please specify your role in the airline industry?
• How much access do you have to airports?
• What information do you have on the limitations and cracks in present airport security systems?
• What procedure would travellers from the newly listed countries have to go through?
• What procedure would a person on a watch list have to go through?
• Can they prevent a national from a certain country to travelling to this country and like a Brit going back to Britain?
• What ways can you help us based on what you know of your job and our objective?

Brother Muta







For more about Awlaki and other American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, Anwar-Awlaki

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

AQAP: Inspire Magazine Will Continue

Two new issues of Al Qaeda's English-language magazine "Inspire" hit the virtual newsstands today, with a promise that more will follow.

"To the disappointment of our enemies, issue 9 of inspire [sic lowercase] magazine is out against all odds," wrote Yahya Ibrahim, the only surviving member of Inspire's original masthead. "[Inspire] is here to stay because it was not found to end with the end of its founders."

Issue 8 of Inspire is the last issue overseen by its founding editor, American Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula member Samir Khan, prior to his death by drone in September 2011. Although it was not released at the time, the issue had been finalized almost two weeks before Khan and his mentor, American cleric Anwar Awlaki, were killed.

Issue 9 is the first post-Khan issue, and the downgrade to Inspire's staff is clearly evident from the quotes above and on the cover, which features a grievous typo.



As Jihadica's Will McCants observed on Twitter, they "left off the 'h' in 'whining'."

Khan's absence is felt throughout the issue in ways large and small. For instance, the issue display of martyr's tribute for Awlaki and Khan lack Khan's trademark design flourish to emphasize their importance. Despite its release this week, the issue does not strongly reference the death of bin Laden. Headlines throughout the issue often fail to reflect the articles, and a autobiographical piece attributed to Awlaki is in sore need of editing.

As far as content, Issue 8's most important feature is a previously promoted article by Awlaki justifying the murder of American civilians. Awlaki takes a bloodier tone than he has in the past with a fairly sweeping imprimatur for nearly any tactic or approach to killing Americans. Operational notes features instruction on the use of handguns, continuing AQ's trend toward encouraging smaller and more reliable attacks. In most other respects, the issue continues the content seen in previous editions.

Issue 9 attempts to maintain continuity and succeeds to a degree, despite the noticeable drop in quality. In addition to Yahya Ibrahim's assurance that Inspire will continue, AQAP religious leader Ibrahim al-Rubaish also indicates that AQAP will continue to strongly support Inspire. Much of the issue is dedicated to personal accounts of Awlaki by those who knew him, as well as a lengthy piece on Samir Khan.

In a sharp break from previous issues, Inspire 9 urges would-be "individual jihadists" (i.e., lone wolves) to contact them directly via e-mail and provide a wealth of identifying information, which I imagine most American CT officials would wholeheartedly endorse. Previous issues of Inspire urged would-be lone wolves to act without contacting AQAP or anyone else about their plans. I may have a bit more to say about this later.

Operational elements in Issue 9 include a focus on assassination, which can be read as significant in conjunction with Issue 8's focus on handguns. Both issue 8 and 9 strongly suggest President Obama as an assassination target, although issue 8 is more explicit.

For more about Inspire and American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, American-Al-Qaeda, Anwar-Awlaki, Inspire-Magazine, Samir-Khan

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Beatings and Bureaucracy: The Founding Memos of Al Qaeda

A new INTELWIRE e-book provides a candid glimpse at the origins of Al Qaeda in its own words.

"Beatings and Bureaucracy: The Founding Memos of Al Qaeda" offers the full text of 30 different Al Qaeda founding documents, most of which have never been published before, including notes from the meetings at which Al Qaeda was imagined and created, letters to and from Osama bin Laden and other key Al Qaeda figures, and detailed descriptions of conflicts between bin Laden's allies and the followers of his mentor, Abdullah Azzam.

Click here to read on Kindle

If there's enough interest in these documents, additional material will follow.

Several of the documents in this collection were written by American jihadist Mohamed Loay Bayazid, an Al Qaeda founder. For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Abdullah-Azzam, Al-Qaeda, American-Al-Qaeda, Benevolence-International-Foundation, Mohamed-Loay-Bayazid, Osama-Bin-Laden

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Boy Who Cried 'Lone Wolf'

I had two recent pieces on "Jihad Joes" in Foreign Policy:

THE BOY WHO CRIED 'LONE WOLF'

Friday's arrest of a would-be suicide bomber in Washington, D.C. led to a fresh paroxysm of analysis in the media on the ominous threat of lone wolf terrorism on U.S. soil.

The problem is that Amine El-Khalifi wasn't alone. He was in contact with men he believed were part of Al Qaeda, and those men handed him a complete (but inert) suicide vest and an automatic weapon to carry out his attack. The fact those men were FBI undercover agents is beside the point. If someone claiming to work for Al Qaeda hands you a fully assembled bomb for your attack, you're not a lone wolf.

Read more by J.M. Berger at Foreign Policy

AL QAEDA'S YOUNG AMERICANS

Hundreds of Somalis gathered on the outskirts of Mogadishu on Feb. 13 to celebrate the union of al Qaeda with its Somali cousin, the insurgent-terrorist group al-Shabab. But the mainstream media hasn't quite figured out what to make of the news, first announced last week, that the two groups had officially merged.

Many reporters were already accustomed to thinking of them as the same group. Others grasped at straws to fit the news into the "al Qaeda is losing" narrative -- dominant ever since Osama bin Laden was killed last May.

They might have done better with a simple headline: "Dozens of Americans Join al Qaeda."

Read more by J.M. Berger at Foreign Policy

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Shabab, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Amine-El-Khalifi, Foreign-Policy, individual-jihad, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Oops, My Facebook Friend Just Joined AQ

Some Facebook friends of Al Qaeda member Cabdulaahi Faarax (click for larger image)

Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax has a lot of friends on Facebook. More than 400 in fact. So what will those friends -- many of whom live in the United States -- do now that Al Shabab, the Somali militant organization to which Faarax belongs -- has officially merged with Al Qaeda?

It's not like they shouldn't have known already. Al Shabab is, after all, a designated terrorist entity and dozens of Americans have been indicted for various activities on Shabab's behalf. And the organization's leaders already publicly swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and after him, Ayman Al Zawahiri.

But for all that the brand name has suffered, there is still something special about being a member of "Al Qaeda." And thus, something special about being Facebook friends with an official, no-bones-about-it Al Qaeda member.

Especially if you are, say, one of Faarax's 47 friends living in Minneapolis who list their schools or employers on their Facebook pages, names like Wells Fargo Insurance, IBI Carrier LLC, afrodeli.com, Hennepin County Library, HTI Co., Sheridan College, Country Financial, Manchester Unlimited, Normandale Community College, St. Mary's University, Minnesota State, Edison Senior High School, or Roosevelt Senior High School.

And those are just in Minneapolis.

If employers are scouring Facebook pages for pictures of employees doing beer bongs during long-ago college days, it makes you wonder what they would think of an employee who is friends with an Al Qaeda member.

Not to mention companies -- like Facebook and Twitter -- that are currently providing a platform for these newly minted Al Qaeda members. Time to do some weeding, folks.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Cabdulaahi-Ahmed-Faarax, Somalia

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Nasser Al-Awlaki Blasts U.S. For Killing of Son and Grandson

The father of Anwar Al-Awlaki blasted the United States in an audio message "to the Muslims of Britain" posted online today.

"When the United States assassinated my beloved son, Anwar, using drone Hellfire missiles, he was far from any battlefield," Nassar Al-Awlaki said.

Anwar Awlaki was killed in September by a U.S. drone strike. He was born in the Los Cruces, New Mexico, where his father, Nassar, was studying as an agronomist. The audio appears to have been tied to a protest outside the U.S. embassy in London by the banned group, Muslims Against Crusades.

"Anwar was assassinated because of his teachings," Nassar Al-Awlaki said, complaining that no evidence was ever presented against Anwar Awlaki and "no evidence ever will be."

Awlaki also said that his 16-year-old grandson, killed in a drone strike in October, was a noncombatant who was with teenage friends at the time he was killed.

"They knew that Imam Anwar Awlaki carried an effective message that was simple and straightforward. Its target was the Muslims in the West. They consider an affluent convincing Muslim preacher as a threat. So they tried everything to silence him," Awlaki said.

For more about Awlaki, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Jihad-Joe, Muslims-Against-Crusades, Nasser-Awlaki

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

New from J.M. Berger: The Enduring Legacy of Awlaki's 'Constants on the Path of Jihad'

I have a new piece in The Sentinel, the journal published by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

A U.S. drone killed Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi on Sept. 30, 2011, but his greatest contribution to Al Qaeda's cause lives on. Awlaki's six-hour audio lecture "Constants on the Path of Jihad" may be the single most influential work of jihadist incitement in the English language.

"Constants" is not Awlaki's original work. The jihadist tract was written in Arabic after September 11 by ideologue Yusuf al-Uyayri, a veteran of the jihad against the Soviet Union who joined al-Qa'ida and later founded al-Qai'da in the Arabian Peninsula.

Al-Uyayri was the author of several influential works on jihad that have been widely distributed online before he was killed by Saudi security forces in 2003. However, Awlaki's translation of "Constants" into English has become a classic of radicalization in the West, not just because of Awlaki's formidable language skills, but also his creative interpretation of the original text with expanded religious stories and real-life examples.

Read the full article at the CTC Sentinel

For more about Awlaki and other American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Anwar Awlaki Killed

The most wanted American in Al Qaeda, Anwar Al Awlaki, was reportedly killed in Yemen.

The details of his death are uncertain, and this is not the first time he has been reported killed.

So far, three claims have surfaced. First, that Awlaki was killed in a drone strike. Second, that he was killed by a Special Operations raid of some sort. Third, that he was killed by air strikes by either the Yemeni or U.S. governments.

J.M. Berger for Foreign Policy: Gone But Not Forgotten, Awlaki's Legacy

Awlaki was, in many ways, a unique figure in the jihadist pantheon. Born in the United States and raised mostly in Yemen, he was fluent in both English and Arabic. He rose to prominence as a mainstream Muslim speaker, winning substantial acclaim for his translation and commentary on stories from the Quran and hadith.

Awlaki was rightfully praised for his command of American idiom and ability to process Islamic content for Western audiences by drawing on his knowledge of Western pop culture. But his real strength as a preacher was storytelling. Awlaki took stories from ancient sources and embellished them, breathing live into tales that had often been passed down only in skeletal form.

His mainstream success accentuated the danger created by his public shift to extremism. Awlaki was widely loved by English-speaking Muslims around the world. The evidence strongly suggests that he was involved in extremist networks even as a young man, but to the public, he was the very face of devotional Islam. He was cited in U.S. media for his moderate statements even as he made much more radical statements behind closed doors.

In 2000 and 2001, Awlaki and his followers provided significant assistance to at least three of the September 11 hijackers, helping them find apartments, drive around the country and obtain IDs suitable for use in boarding an airplane. The evidence suggests this help was provided knowing that the men were Al Qaeda operatives, if not with specific knowledge of the plot. One of the hijackers described Awlaki as "a great man" and his "spiritual leader."

From 2002 on, Awlaki became a case study for how not to handle a suspected terrorist. Misstep after misstep from both government and media helped catapult Awlaki into global prominence as an extremist.

In October 2002, the U.S. arrested Awlaki while he was entering the country after traveling overseas but released him almost immediately under murky circumstances. Had he been arrested and prosecuted then, it might have saved American lives.

Awlaki left the country immediately after this near miss. His lectures became more and more overtly radical. Followers who had joined him for stories of the Islamic prophets could follow him as he "thought aloud" about the relationship between the West and Islam and concluded that they were fatally incompatible.

In 2004, Awlaki returned to Yemen, issuing his most famous extremist work, "Constants on the Path of Jihad." Although Constants is often attributed to Awlaki, it was not his original work. Based on an Arabic essay by one of the founders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the six hour lecture series outlined a strong argument in favor of jihad. Although Awlaki presented himself only as the translator, he extensively expanded on the original text, making it significantly more accessible and emotional. At least dozens of arrested extremists have listened to the lectures for inspiration.

Awlaki was arrested by Yemeni authorities in 2007 on the pretext of having given a fatwa approving a kidnapping by local militants. By most accounts, he emerged from prison even more heavily radicalized. Soon after, Awlaki created a blog where he praised jihadist groups such as Al Shabab. In 2009, he praised American military officer Nidal Hassan for killing American soldiers in a shooting spree at Fort Hood. Soon after, Awlaki was implicated as the teacher and guide to Omar Farouk Abdulmuttallab, who tried to bomb a Detroit-bound plane at Christmas with explosives smuggled on board in his underwear.

Awlaki also used e-mail to inspire and sometimes direct plots. He was among the most accessible and Internet-savvy extremists, personally corresponding with several suspects who were later arrested on various charges of terrorism.

A number of things happened after that. The United States leaked that Awlaki had been added to the CIA's authorized list of targets for assassination. That immediately led Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to issue a statement that the organization would defend Awlaki to the death. Soon after, AQAP issued a video interview with Awlaki in which he openly embraced Al Qaeda and its ideology, and soon after that, Awlaki issued an explicit call for Muslims living in the West to kill Americans under any circumstance.

Awlaki's standing in the jihadist world exploded in the wake of these developments, which were at least accelerated (if not wholly provoked) by the leak about Awlaki's targeting. Prior to the leak, Awlaki was someone with wide influence among Western extremists but without clear credibility among hardcore jihadists.

After the leak, Awlaki became public enemy number one. The media anointed Awlaki a "senior leader" or even "the top leader" of AQAP, a claim which was presented without evidence and which flew in the face of established reporting on AQAP's leadership.

Although some were skeptical of Awlaki having any role at all with AQAP, credible reports did support the view that Awlaki had become part of the group. Abdulmutallab reported being trained by Awlaki and the bomb in his underwear matched those created by AQAP's senior explosive expert. A subsequent bomb plot linked to Awlaki, the UPS bomb plot of 2010, also carried the technical hallmarks of AQAP. Reports from Australian media also described sightings of Awlaki at AQAP training camps.

On being adopted by AQAP, Awlaki stopped issuing audio and video in English, abandoning his most effective tool for inspiring violence, but he continued to issue statements in Arabic. More importantly, he oversaw the production of Inspire magazine, an English-language propaganda publication distributed online.

Inspire was the brainchild of American extremist Samir Khan (reportedly killed alongside Awlaki), who started it as a hobby project while living in the United States, then moved to Yemen and began publishing the magazine under the flag of AQAP, with exclusive content and oversight from Awlaki.

At the time of his alleged death, Awlaki was planning to issue a video answering questions from email correspondents. The most recent issue of Inspire, which did not feature any original content from Awlaki, also promised a forthcoming piece on the legitimacy of targeting civilians living in the West.

Both of these pieces could still surface, even if Awlaki is dead, and of course, his 100-plus hours of audio and video lectures will survive his death, likely becoming even more popular. It's worth remembering that Abdullah Azzam, killed more than 20 years ago, is still one of the most popular jihadist ideologues, whose videos still provide vast inspiration.

That "if" is an important consideration. If it turns out these reports are premature, Awlaki is uniquely positioned to capitalize. Inspire has already published articles touting Awlaki having survived a painfully close call with a drone strike in May 2011.

Inspire often employs mockery in the service of its propaganda, and Awlaki himself has a sharp sense of humor. If we have buried Awlaki too soon, we'll hear about it, and once again, our own missteps will make his legend grow.

Full story from CBS News

Intelwire coverage of Awlaki

The Atlantic: Awlaki and September 11

Foreign Policy: The Awlaki Myth

Letter from UK jihadist describes contacts with Awlaki

Is Inspire Magazine Uninspired?

For much more about Awlaki, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Journalists seeking more information or comment on Awlaki can contact J.M. Berger here.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, American-Al-Qaeda, Anwar-Aulaqi, Anwar-Awlaki, AQAP, Inspire-Magazine, Samir-Khan

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Affidavit: Rezwan Ferdaus Allegedly Planned To Bomb Capitol, Pentagon With Homemade Drones

Ashland, Massachusetts, resident Rezwan Ferdaus was charged today with plotting to use homemade drones to bomb the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, as well as providing detonators to undercover agents which he believed were used to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

Click here for the affidavit

Below is a reconnaissance photo Ferdaus took at the Pentagon. Click image for larger version.


For more about American jihadists, including the long history of such activity in the Boston area, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Boston, homegrown-terrorism, lone-wolf, Rezwan-Ferdaus

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Declassified State Department Cables On Al Qaeda-Linked Cell in California

State Department cables obtained by INTELWIRE describe Ayman Al Zawahiri's trip to California in 1995 and the activities of an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist cell in Northern California.

The general outline of the cell's activities has been previously reported in newspapers and in Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

The documents, obtained from the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act, detail the trial of a group of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operatives captured in Egypt and Albania, with the latter being deported to Egypt. Because of this, the trial became known as the "Returnees from Albania" case. One of those tried in the case was Khaled Abu El Dahab, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in California with the notorious Al Qaeda infiltrator Ali Mohamed. Dahab was arrested in Egypt.

Click here to read the full documents

According to the cables:

Zawahiri [who was at the time emir of Egyptian Islamic Jihad] visited the U.S. in early 1995 using a forged passport, primarily to collect contributions from Islamist circles. Abu ad-Dahhab placed Zawahiri at the Al-Nur mosque in Santa Clara, California. Three American citizens of Egyptian extraction who, per Abu ad-Dahhab, helped Zawahiri' s 1995 visit were Ali Abu al-Sa'ud Mustafa [Ali Mohamed] and two brothers, Ali and Hassan Zaki, all living in the San Franscisco area. Mustafa had served in the U.S. army for several years. [Egyptian newspaper] Al-Hayat of February 11 adds that Egyptian authorities may ask the U.S. to render Mustafa for trial in the "returnees" case, primarily for his EIJ fundraising. Mustafa apparently told Abu ad-Dahhab that the money that Mustafa had raised was used to plan the 1995 bomb attack on the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan. Mustafa is also wanted for helping to train EIJ operatives in bomb-making techniques, per Al-Hayat.

Mohamed and Zawahiri were convicted in absentia during the trial, however Mohamed was by this point under indictment in New York for his role in the 1998 East African Embassy bombings. Dahab was convicted and sentenced to prison. His current status is unknown, although according to some accounts he died in prison.

Although the cell was initially organized under the banner of EIJ, testimony from both Mohamed and Dahab, as well as other witnesses, indicated that both men took orders directly from Osama bin Laden at times, and both took part in highly sensitive Al Qaeda activities, including communications, security and the planning of terrorist attacks. For most meaningful purposes, the cell is considered an Al Qaeda operation.

Also convicted in absentia during the "Returnees" trial was Mohammed Al Islambouli, the brother of Sadat assassin Khaled Al Islambouli, who recently returned to Egypt after the fall of Mubarak and was promptly arrested. The cables state that "some observers [in Cairo] believe Muhammad Islambouli is connected with the EIJ defendants through setting up terrorist training camps in the Balkans."

If you see any interesting tidbits in this material not covered here, feel free to discuss them with me on Twitter.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Ali-Mohamed, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri, Egypt, Egyptian-Islamic-Jihad, Jihad-Joe, Khaled-Al-Dahab

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Listening to Anwar Awlaki

I have a new piece in Foreign Policy on Anwar Awlaki:

On Tuesday, Aug. 9, Naser Abdo, an American soldier, was indicted for plotting a terrorist attack against soldiers stationed at Fort Hood -- just the latest in a series of U.S. citizens who have been inspired to violence by the words of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American imam who went rogue and today threatens the United States from his father's country of Yemen.

Awlaki is clearly a dangerous man. As a country, the United States spends a lot of time talking about, worrying about, and trying to kill him. Unfortunately, attention runs fast, but not deep.

On July 27, Salon's Glenn Greenwald argued that Awlaki represented "the face of moderate Islam" and "the opposite of [Osama] bin Laden" before Sept. 11, 2001. By Greenwald's account, Awlaki was subsequently radicalized by America's wars and foreign policies. This conclusion was based on exactly two sources -- an interview conducted with Awlaki in 2001 and another interview dated 2009.

On the same day, Navy SEAL Adm. Eric T. Olson, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, discussed the threat posed by Awlaki. "He's a dual-passport holder who has lived in the United States," Olson said, "so he understands us much better than we understand him."

In reality, Awlaki has given us a shocking abundance of material with which we can judge and understand him. He has recorded more than 100 hours of audio lectures, more than bin Laden, almost all of them in colloquial English. He has also figured in a long trail of investigations, including FBI and 9/11 Commission documents that are available to the public. Taken together, these sources reveal a portrait of a conflicted man whose path to radicalization started in the 1990s and steadily progressed to his present-day status as a terrorist icon.

Click here for the full story

For more than 10,000 words of additional perspective on Awlaki, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Foreign-Policy, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Jihad Joe Reading And Signing At Porter Square Books in Cambridge

I'll be appearing at my local, Porter Square Bookstore, in Cambridge to do a reading from Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam on Tuesday, July 12, at 7 p.m. Click here to RSVP through Facebook, or just come on down. I hope to see you!

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Sunday Reading: The New York Times Review of 'Jihad Joe'

The New York Times has a review of my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, by national security reporter Scott Shane. You can read the whole thing here. The money quote follows:

At a time when some politicians and pundits blur the line between Islam and terrorism, Berger, who knows this subject far better than the demagogues, sharply cautions against vilifying Muslim Americans. "Extreme and indiscriminate anti-Muslim rhetoric helps to validate the worldview of our enemies -- the premise that America's wars are indeed wars against Islam," Berger writes. "You cannot tell someone, 'You are my enemy,' and then blame them for believing you."

It is a timely warning from an expert who has not lost his ­perspective.

Check out the full review

Buy the book

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Jihad Joe Review At Zenpundit: "A Book To Admire"

My new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, was reviewed by Charles Cameron at Zenpundit. Some excerpts:

Berger's work is detail-packed and focused, and a useful resource for that reason alone. But it is also and specifically the work of someone who has read and talked with and listened to the people he is writing about, and his work carries their voices embedded in his own commentary. It thus joins such works as Jessica Stern's Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill and Mark Juergensmeyer's similarly named and similarly excellent Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. [...]

Berger neither condemns nor excuses: he sees, he asks, he researches, he reports. His observations of the current situation can thus be trusted to be driven by insight rather than ideology -- not the most common of stances, but one we very much need. [...]

Berger's is a book to read, certainly -- and more significantly perhaps, a book to admire.

Read the full review

Buy the book

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Berger on Foreign Policy: Zawahiri’s American Court Jester

I have a piece as part of Foreign Policy's roundtable on the start of the Zawahiri era of Al Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden liked having Americans in his entourage. Mohammed Loay Bayazid, a former resident of Kansas City, took notes at the meeting in which al-Qaeda was founded. Wadih El-Hage, formerly of Tucson, was one of the terror network's first members and eventually became bin Laden's personal assistant.

Now that Ayman al-Zawahiri has ascended to al-Qaeda's throne, he will likely bring along his own American courtier - Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam the American, formerly of Orange County, California.

Click here to read the full story

For more about Gadahn, check out buy J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, out now!

Also be sure to check out the other, rather-more-impressive entries in the FP Roundtable:

William McCants: The al-Qaeda Zawahiri inherits

Leah Farrall: Al-Qaeda’s delayed announcement

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: Zawahiri’s ascension won’t change al-Qaeda’s strategy

Labels: Adam-Gadahn, Al-Qaeda, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri, Jihad-Joe, Osama-Bin-Laden

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Shadow of Ali Mohamed Hangs Over Nosair Appeal

The New York Times reports today that New York-area jihadist El Sayyid Nosair is appealing his sentence for terrorism-related conspiracy in the 1995 prosecution that brought down the "blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman.

The heart of Nosair's appeal revolves around Al Qaeda's mysterious spy, Ali Mohamed, who successfully infiltrated the U.S. Army during the 1980s, partially succeeded in infiltrating the FBI and was thwarted in a similar attempt against the CIA.

Nosair's argument, the kernel of which has been covered on this site and in my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, is that prosecutors concealed Mohamed's location from the defense, which wanted to subpoena him as a witness.

First thing first: Mohamed's participation in the case would not have made a material difference in Nosair's verdict. His conviction was based on a raft of evidence pertaining to his assassination of radical rabbi Meir Kahane in November 1990 and his direction of other terrorist attempts from prison afterward.

Mohamed provided Nosair and others with training and support materials. Nosair's attorney wanted to argue that Mohamed (who was active duty Army at the time) was providing this support with the blessing of the U.S. government as training for the group to fight in Afghanistan alongside CIA-allied mujahideen.

The pertinence of this is pretty obviously flimsy, since Nosair never went to Afghanistan but instead worked on terrorist attacks in the greater New York area. Even if he had received training with government support, that wouldn't excuse his illegal actions any more than going through the police academy would excuse someone who later went on a shooting spree.

That said, the question of Mohamed's handling by federal officials, more broadly, has significant public interest outside of the context of Nosair.

Mohamed started acting as a double-agent informant for the FBI in 1991. He had been called back to the country by the FBI for questioning in the Nosair trial in late 1994 -- a very busy period for Al Qaeda and its affiliates, who were in the late stages of planning to bomb U.S. bound airliners (a plot soon to be disrupted) and in the early stages of the East African embassy bombing plot that would come to fruition in 1998. The details of Mohamed's relationship with the government is still murky.

The evidence suggests that some give and take took place during the Justice Department's 1994 meetings with Mohamed. In December 1994, according to court records, the lead prosecutor in the Nosair case, Andrew McCarthy, exchanged faxes with Mohamed concerning the subpoena issued by Nosair's attorney. McCarthy did not respond to my repeated requests for an interview about these faxes and other issues over the course of the last few years. The faxes may be explained by today's NYT report which states:

Far from keeping his whereabouts secret from the defense, the government has said in court papers that officials extracted an agreement from Mr. Mohamed, who met with the authorities in 1994, to be available for the trial, but that Mr. Nosair’s lawyers did not ask for help in securing his presence. “Mohamed simply was not suppressed,” prosecutors wrote.

I'd like to see exactly what those documents say, and they may turn up in the course of this case. I noted that while most of Nosair's filings in his appeal are available on PACER (and will eventually be posted here), none of the government's filings could be obtained as of this morning.

Finally, a note on the NYT's headline, it's not strictly accurate to refer to Nosair as a "convicted Al Qaeda agent." Even with a fairly loose definition of what it means to be an Al Qaeda agent (more on this in a day or two), it's a stretch to say Nosair was part of Al Qaeda in a meaningful sense -- based on the evidence as it currently stands. "Convicted Al Qaeda agent" also implies that he was convicted of being an Al Qaeda agent, which is flatly untrue. The story itself does not claim Nosair was a member or agent of Al Qaeda.

For much more about Ali Mohamed and Sayyid Nosair, buy J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, out now!

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Ali-Mohamed, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Terrorists, El-Sayyid-Nosair, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Jihad Joe Featured On Front Page Of Toronto's National Post

Jihad Joe was featured recently in a story by Toronto's National Post on controversial Islamic preacher Bilal Philips.

When Bilal Philips turned up in Frankfurt in April to address a demonstration organized by a local Muslim leader, German immigration police quickly expelled him for advocating the killing of homosexuals.

“Which is nonsense,” the 64-year-old Canadian Muslim preacher said in an interview this week during a visit to Toronto. “I was not advocating or calling on Germans to rise up and kill homosexuals.”

"Jihad Joe" includes never-before-revealed details about an Al Qaeda-linked program to recruit American military veterans as an "A-Team" to train and assist Bosnian mujahideen fighters, including the U.S. military policy that led to an Al Qaeda operative preaching to U.S. soldiers about Islam on a U.S. base with the approval of Army commanders during the Gulf War.

Read the full story

Buy the book

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, Bilal-Philips, Bosnia, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink