Well, Is Al Qaeda Winning Or Not?

Some of my favorite thinkers have diametrically opposing pieces in The Atlantic today. Will McCants and William Rosenau write about How We Won the War on Terror, while Daveed Gartenstein-Ross writes that Al Qaeda is Winning.

Followers of my work will know that I reviewed and agreed with the thesis put forward by Gartenstein-Ross in his new book, Bin Laden's Legacy.

However McCants is a powerhouse in this field, and the piece he and Rosenau put forward makes some very valid points, arriving at a completely different conclusion but ultimately making some of the same policy prescriptions as Gartenstein-Ross.

While there are many reasons I agree with Gartenstein-Ross' thesis, I want to talk briefly about an issue that neither column raises, but which I think is chiefly responsible for Al Qaeda's failure to mount a successful mass casualty attack since 9/11.

For more than a decade prior to September 11, Al Qaeda and its close allies ran a series of mass production terrorist training camps in the AfPak region. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, along with substantial pressure on Pakistan, has crippled that training camp network.

Although the camps have not been totally eliminated, they have been massively disrupted. In the past, the camps could and did process hundreds of recruits at any given time, providing religious indoctrination, basic military training and advanced military training. The training could take place over the course of months or years, and there were relatively few obstacles to traveling to the camps.

Such camps still exist, but they're no longer centralized. They are harder to reach, and the courses they offer are less thorough and much more rushed.

When we talk about Al Qaeda winning or losing, we have to account for the fact we are fighting a war of containment rather than clear victory. The continued pressure we are exerting over the training camp network is largely responsible for Al Qaeda's inability to carry out mass casualty attacks or to train loosely affiliated comrades to do the same.

Since 9/11, we have seen foiled attacks and we have seen failed attacks. On the latter front, from Times Square to the underwear bomber to the lone wolves, lack of training is an overwhelming theme. Training camps still exist, but they are smaller and less secure, with fewer experienced personnel. The training regimen is rushed, candidates enter and are turned around very quickly for attacks without the months or years of advanced training and religious indoctrination seen in the past.

If Faisal Shahzad or Omar Abdulmutallab had been thoroughly and competently trained, their attacks could easily have succeeded, and we'd be having a very different conversation today.

Without fully operational mass-production training camps, there would not have been a World Trade Center bombing in 1993, there would not have been the East African embassy bombings in 1998, and there would not have been a September 11.

Unfortunately, there are two reasons why we can't declare victory on this issue.

First, it is obvious to everyone that we can't stay in Afghanistan forever. Our success in the AfPak region, such as it is, is based on a strategy of constant pressure.

In the absence of that pressure, and under any foreseeable (to me) scenario involving a weak Afghan government and an ambivalent Pakistani military-intelligence apparatus, I see very little reason to think that Al Qaeda's camps won't regenerate once we leave the region. We have the tool of drones today, which we didn't have before, but it's not a magic wand that can operate forever without restraints, especially in the absence of local support.

Second, Al Qaeda now has growing opportunities to train operatives in other places, most notably Somalia and Yemen, and future prospects in Iraq and various points around Africa. Those operations are still small relative to their AfPak predecessors, but they appear to be growing.

We have drone operations in some of these locations, but as noted above, I'm not convinced they can be as effective over a long haul as our substantial military presence in the AfPak theater.

Despite coming at it from different angles, McCants and Gartenstein-Ross -- and a growing chorus of other experts -- all agree that we need to scale back our military and security outlay for reasons both financial and sociological, and I agree with that as well.

But we need to accept that such cutbacks will likely enhance Al Qaeda's prospects for successful attacks in the medium-term future. That enhancement, combined with the wild political uncertainties of the Arab Spring, make it hard for me to be optimistic that we have won -- or can be said to be winning -- our war with Al Qaeda in the foreseeable future.

A final note of caution: The complex attack carried out in Norway by Anders Breivik is likely to inspire imitators. Breivik did something that no one else has -- he showed that a single person can carry out a spectacular terrorist attack, and he provided a detailed account of how he accomplished the task. This could be a game-changer even in the absence of a robust training network, but if and when the network regenerates, the new breed of instructors will most certainly be studying Breivik's tactics (as will other, non-AQ actors).

The war against al Qaeda is most certainly changing, but I'm hard pressed to see how that change puts us in the position of winning or having won. It's arguably an overstatement to say Al Qaeda is winning, per se, but it is successfully executing a large part of the "bleed-to-bankruptcy" strategy it has delineated in its statements. The Arab Spring, the death of bin Laden and other factors may well help us, but we are a long way from seeing the ultimate impact of those events.

For more about al Qaeda training camps and the terror network's American recruits, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: 9-11, Al-Qaeda, East-African-Embassy-Bombings, Faisal-Shahzad, September-11, Umar-Farouk-Abdulmutallab, World-Trade-Center-Bombing

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Feds: US Supporters of Pakistani Taliban Sent At Least $50,000 To Fund Terror

UPDATED

Three naturalized American citizens in South Florida have been indicted for providing money and material support to the Pakistani Taliban, the Justice Department announced today.

Those arrested today and charged include:

Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, imam of the Miami Masjid

Hafiz Khan's son, Irfan Khan, 37, also of Miami, Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla.

Izhar Khan, 24, of North Lauderdale, Fla.

Hafiz and Izhar Khan were arrested in Florida. Izhar Khan was arrested in Los Angeles. Three others living in Pakistan were charged under the same indictment, but are still at large. It was not immediately clear if they were also American citizens.

Ali Rehman, aka “Faisal Ali Rehman”

Hafiz Khan's daughter, Amina Khan

Hafiz Khan's grandson, Alam Zeb

Full text of indictment

Hafiz Khan, a native of the Swat Valley region of Pakistan, has been imam at the Miami Masjid in the U.S. since at least 1999, according to the indictment. He is accused of soliciting, collecting and transferring funds to Tehrik-e Taliban, the Pakistani group behind the attempted bombing of Times Square by American citizen Faisal Shahzad.

“Despite being an Imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace," U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer said in a statement.

Hafiz Khan is also accused of founding and controlling a madrassa in the Swat region of Pakistan, Madrassa Arabia Ahya-al-Aloom, which was used to provide shelter and support to TTP members as well as to indoctrinate children in jihad. Children from the madrassa were allegedly sent to fight Americans in Afghanistan.

Ali Rehman, one of the suspects living in Pakistan, was charged with trying to provide guns and financial support to TTP. The rest of the suspects were accused of collecting and delivering money to TTP. Formal charges for all six include conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping, and material support of a terrorist organization.

Significant amounts of money moved through the network, according to the indictment. Between 2008 and 2010, at least $50,000 in funds were moved from the U.S. to Pakistan for use by TTP. Ferrer told the Miami Herald that considerably more money was involved.

Hafiz Khan took part in phone conversations with Irfan Khan and others in which he called for a suicide bomb attack on the Pakistani parliament as well as strategies to assassinate Pakistani officials using guns. In a separate conversation, he called for the death of Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari and an Iranian-style revolution to establish Islamic law in Pakistan.

The fundraising was not generalized. At times, Hafiz Kahn specifically directed funds to fighters or units and advised couriers in Pakistan on how to avoid detection. Most of the money was intended to buy guns and pay Taliban fighters and their families.

The Muslim Communities Association & Coalition of South Florida Muslim Organizations issued a statement today saying they were "aware of the indictment." According to the statement, the organizations have "been working with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Miami FBI office, and appreciate the efforts of law enforcement to root out potential sources and supporters of terrorism. We stand together with the U.S. Attorney, Wifredo Ferrer, and the men and women of the FBI, and have been and will be cooperating with law enforcement to our fullest ability."

The statement said Khan had been suspended as imam of the Masjid Miami.

South Florida has long been a center for Islamic extremists. Prior to September 11, followers of the blind sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman helped recruit jihadists in the area to fight in Bosnia and Chechnya.

Two of Al Qaeda's most famous American recruits also hail from the area -- Jose Padilla, who was sent to the U.S. by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on a mission to blow up apartment buildings, and Adnan Shukrijumah, who the FBI believes is an important leader of Al Qaeda's external opertations.

TTP was responsible for the attempted bombing of Times Square in May 2010. Faisal Shazad, a naturalized American citizen, was trained and partially financed by TTP. He was also videotaped meeting with senior leaders of the group.

Just this week, TTP carried out a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed 80 people. A statement issued by the group said that the attack was "revenge" for the killing of Osama bin Laden.

For much more about American jihadists in Florida and all over the United States, buy J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, out now!.

Labels: Faisal-Shahzad, Florida, Hafiz-Khan, Izhar-Khan, Taliban, Tehrik-E-Taliban

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Faisal Shahzad, Times Square Bomber, Criminal Complaint

Pakistan, traveled to the United States, transported a sports utility vehicle to the vicinity of 45th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, New York, and attempted to detonate explosive and incendiary devices located inside the sports utility vehicle. [...]

Click here for full document

Labels: Faisal-Shahzad, INTELFILES, Pakistan, Taliban, Times-Square

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

The Genius of Radicalism

Revolution Muslim managed to illustrate the reason its bloggers hate South Park so much. They are seriously humor-impaired. It's an occupational hazard when you spend all your days and nights trying to maximize your rage.

Anyway, RM posted an item discussing the watchlisting of Faisal Shahzad. The post by Taliba Al Quran was pulled back pretty quickly this morning but I happened to catch it before it vanished.

This "law enforcement system" uses methods like this, from Andy Borowitz's article:

The surveillance team's revelations come on the heels of the Dept. of Homeland Security's shocker that it had friended Mr. Shahzad on Facebook weeks ago and had even played the popular online game Farmville with him.

"A few days before the Times Square incident, Mr. Shahzad attempted to blow up one of our sheep," a Department spokesman said. "In retrospect, that should have been a red flag."

Yes, you may want to read that again. Blowing up a sheep in an online game should "raise red flags." Ya Allah protect us all from these "Security" people! Well, it should serve as a lesson. If you are playing an online game, and are Muslim - don't blow stuff up in "Farmville."

Yes, you may want to read that again. RM bloggers are so eager to wind up their engines of outrage over imagined slights to Muslims that they actually believed DHS was playing Farmville on Facebook with Faisal Shahzad last week.

Labels: Faisal-Shahzad, Revolution-Muslim, South-Park, Times-Square, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Times Square: A Dramatic Arrest And A Parcel Of New Questions

In a dramatic last-minute save, Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen of Pakistani origin, was snatched off an airplane bound for Dubai and a connection to Pakistan.

The FBI issued a cautiously worded statement indicating it was still looking for possible other conspirators, but Shahzad claimed to have been working alone. He had traveled to Dubai at least one time previously.

It's not clear when he was last in Pakistan, and his family is from the Northwest. All of this lends significant credibility to Sunday's claim of responsibility by the Pakistani Taliban, first reported by the Long War Journal. The claim was initially greeted with some skepticism by many people, including (I must admit) myself. A follow-up message indicated that multiple terrorist operatives were deployed to the U.S., a possibility which must be taken very seriously.

HAKIMULLAH MEHSUD

The head of a major Pakistani Taliban faction, Hakimullah Mehsud has not exactly been a household name in the United States, although he's a well-known figure to anyone following events in the Af/Pak region.

Mehsud was thought to be dead, or at least that's the story the Pakistani government was peddling, so his sudden re-emergence in conjunction with an attack on the U.S. homeland is a rather dramatic turn of events and one which leaves Pakistani counterterrorism officials with egg on their collective face.

As I noted earlier, the Pak Taliban claim of responsibility for the "recent attack" in the U.S. cited U.S. treatment of Aafia Siddiqi as one of the reasons for the attack. It's bad enough that Mehsud came back from the dead in dramatic manner to strike a blow against the United States on its own soil (albeit a failed blow), but that attack is also tied to an issue that has a lot of traction among ordinary Pakistanis. As I reported a couple weeks ago, the tale of Aafia Siddiqi has been boiling over in Pakistani media outlets, with no sign of cooling.

In short, the narrative around this attack really catapults Mehsud into a position of prominence and imbues him with some populist credibility he previously lacked. It's a dangerous development. Terrorism is storytelling, and Mehsud's story just became a lot more compelling. Let's hope he doesn't have any additional operatives running around on U.S. soil.

Finally, some reports have indicated that the Taliban videos were posted from Connecticut, where Shahzad lives. The first claim video was fairly generic, but if Shahzad (or another member of his cell) was empowered to post the first video of Mehsud since his alleged death, that means he's probably more than just a useful idiot. On the other hand, that conclusion is undermined by the bomb itself.

THE BOMB DESIGN

If Shahzad is indeed affiliated with the Pak Taliban, it's really surprising that he didn't use a better bomb design.

Keep in mind that when I and others talk about the bomb design being "good" or "bad" or "amateurish" we're not saying it's undangerous or that it might not have gone off and killed people.

What "amateurish" means is that the bomb is 1) inefficient for its size, 2) not suited to its apparent target, and 3) not equipped with a reliable detonation system.

In this case, the bomb is also "amateur" looking in that it doesn't resemble the most common forms of improvised explosive devices which have traditionally been taught by Al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So if Shahzad was born in Pakistan, and his family hails from the Northwest (near Peshawar per CNN TV), how is it that he became involved in this kind of operation without getting better training in bomb design?

It's possible that Shahzad was simply personally incompetent. Terrorists come in all varieties, ranging from stupid to brilliant. However, bombs come in all varieties too, from simple to complicated, and the Times Square bomb was a bad combination of complicated and inept. If Shahzad was incompetent, but working for Mehsud, I would have expected his handlers to give him the simplest possible shopping list for bomb components.

I'll have some more thoughts about this when we have more facts.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Faisal-Shahzad, Hakimullah-Mehsud, Pakistan, Taliban, Times-Square, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Disturbing Thought of the Day

Via SpyTalk:

[Charles] Faddis, also author of “Willful Neglect, The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security,” said “terrorist groups all around the world have run probing ops in the past. Leave a package outside an embassy and then watch how security deals with it.”

“Let's hope it is not the latter, because that would imply some very smart boys have something much bigger in mind,” he said.

This would potentially explain a lot. If the device was a method to test chemical detection systems, for instance, it would be a hodge-podge of materials just like the one that was found -- gunpowder, fertilizer, propane, gasoline. And if it was to test responder times and traffic, you would make sure there were real explosives so you could track the whole process, but you wouldn't put a lot of trouble into the design.

Not enough evidence yet to say for certain, and hopefully we'll have a suspect in custody soon to refute the idea, but the number of things I don't like about the last 24 hours seems to be piling up...

UPDATE TUESDAY: CNN is now reporting a piece of data I have been waiting for. According to them, a surveillance camera caught the bomb-rigged Pathfinder entering Times Square about two minutes before it started smoking. In my opinion, this significant reduces the odds that this was a test run -- one of the things that a potential bomber would be trying to evaluate is how long the unattended vehicle could be left double-parked without attracting notice.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Faisal-Shahzad, Times-Square, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

LWJ: Pakistani Taliban Claim "Recent Attack" in US

The Long War Journal is reporting that the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the failed attack in Times Square last night.

The claim does not make it so, but the LWJ offers some compelling reasons to think it may be legitimate. If so, this is a very interesting situation in light of the observations below, should they prove to be the culprits. I'll have more to say about that later, should the claim prove true.

An important counter-indicator is that the communique does not specify New York or Times Square, which is something between curious and suspicious. The person who posted the YouTube video may have been told to watch for an attack around this time, but may not have been told what attack to look for. That means a professional terrorist attack may still be in the works.

Also worth noting is that the message specifically cites the treatment of Aafia Siddiqi as a motive for the attack (among several other things). This may indicate an effort to win Pakistani hearts and minds -- Siddiqi's case in extremely contentious in Pakistan, where she has become something of a folk hero, depicted as a victim of America.

UPDATE: A new video of Haikimullah Mehsud, a top Pakistani Taliban leader, surfaced today to definitively refute reports of his death and to threaten attacks on the U.S. homeland within a month. That makes me increasingly uneasy that the real attack has not yet arrived. (See also this.)

Click here to see the claim of responsibility.

Labels: Aafia-Siddiqui, American-Jihadists, Faisal-Shahzad, New-York, Pakistan, Taliban, Times-Square, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

First Thoughts on Times Square Bomb

UPDATE 12:13 p.m. EST: The Long War Journal is reporting that the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the failed attack in Times Square last night. My immediate reaction to this can be found here. END UPDATE

Story here. Or you can watch CNN live for some truly worthless speculation.

My first thoughts (aka worthless speculation): If the descriptions of the bomb design are accurate, this certainly sounds like an amateur effort. It was made up of fireworks, a relatively small amount of gasoline and propane as well as some fairly random-sounding components.

The vehicle was left running with its hazard lights on, which also smacks of amateurism. It was parked on a street corner rather than targeting a building from a parking garage. It was an SUV (with windows) rather than a van or a truck (which not only hold more explosives but are more difficult to peer into). There were apparently no shrapnel generators, which a pro (or someone getting professional help online) would have used in a device targeting a crowd rather than a building and which can be easily improvised by someone with even a rudimentary knowledge of bomb-making. However, there was an ammo box in the vehicle, which hasn't been opened as of this writing and could have contained such components.

The amateur design doesn't preclude the involvement of AQ or another organized component, but it does reduce the odds. Even a casual jihadist or a typical domestic anti-government extremist would be able to build a better bomb.

If an amateur effort, the suspects would include a petty criminal or criminals or a depressed or mentally ill person lashing out in a disorganized and relatively spontaneous manner.

This person could still be motivated by classically terrorist ideology, such as jihadism or white supremacy, but there are such robust communities in the U.S. for both of these ideologies, it's difficult to see how one could have an interest in one of those subjects and still put together such an amateurish bomb.

If you look at the Underwear Bomber, for instance, his device was sophisticated even if his execution was not. PETN is not a amateur's tool. Fireworks and gasoline are another story.

I'm available to talk to journalists on this subject today on telephone, Skype or at Boston-area studios. Contact me if you need something.

UPDATE 11 a.m. EDT: Authorities have found a VIN number on the vehicle, which will help them trace its ownership. Interestingly, the primary VIN number had been obscured in some way, which is a much more professional-type of action than the bomb would suggest. If confirmed, this most likely means the car was bought from a chop shop, although it could indicate that the bomber was a mechanic or worked some other sort of profession relating to cars.

However, a mechanic would have built a better bomb. Although the bomb is pretty low-end, as discussed above, a few simple tweaks could have made it work better, and it would still have provided a pretty big bang even if it wouldn't have been as lethal as a professional-grade device.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Faisal-Shahzad, Weblog

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink