Philippines Hacker Ring Said to Have Financed Lashkar E-Taiba

A ring of terrorist hackers busted by Philippines police this week may be linked to a hacking cell indicted in the United States in 2009.

An indictment posted on Internet Haganah notes that a militant named M.Z. based in Brescia, Italy, was a key part of a phone-hacking operation that involved three foreign nationals living in the Philippines. The three were slated for extradition to the U.S., but it's unclear what their current status is.

According to the latest story, Muhammad Zamir, a militant living in Brescia, originally ran the Filipino hacking cell disrupted this week. Philippines police said Zamir's activities helped finance Pakistani militant group Lashkar e-Taiba and specifically the Mumbai attack.

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

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

CTC Sentinel: Awlaki's 'Constants of Jihad'

Foreign Policy: Awlaki's Legacy

The Atlantic: Awlaki and September 11

Foreign Policy: The Awlaki Myth

Video: Lessons Learned, 10 Years After 9/11

INTELWIRE: Interview With An Online Jihadist

Book Review: Bin Laden's Legacy | Buy

Huffington Post: Is AQ's Inspire Uninspired?

INTELWIRE: The Five Ds of CVE

INTELWIRE: How Terrorists Use The Internet

INTELWIRE: Hyping the Terrorist Internet

The Atlantic: Why Johnny Jihad Doesn't Listen

Foreign Policy: The Zawahiri Era Begins

New York Daily News: Al Qaeda's Gun Fixation

Fox News: J.M. Berger seen in "Secrets of 9/11"

Video: 'Jihad Joe' book event at GWU

INTELWIRE: What is Al Qaeda? Survey Results

CTC Sentinel: Baltimore's Jamaat Al Muslimeen

INTELWIRE: Interview About Jihad With Controversial Cleric Bilal Philips

Video Clip: Sarajevo Ricochet

Potomac Books: Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam

Labels: Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mumbai, Philippines

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Exclusive: Unsealed Documents From Rana Trial, Headley Interviews, Mumbai Bombing

The U.S. Attorney in Chicago unsealed more than 350 pages of documents related to the trial of Tahawwur Rana for his role in providing support to Lashkar e Tayyiba and conspiracy in the the Mumbai massacre, along with American jihadist David Headley. The documents are below (large PDFs):

Batch One

Batch Two

Batch Three

Batch Four

If reporting from these documents, please credit INTELWIRE.com.

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

Labels: David-Coleman-Headley, INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mumbai, Tahawwur-Rana

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

What Is Al Qaeda, Part 2

Part one
| Part two | Part three

In the first part of the "What is Al Qaeda" survey, we looked at textbook definitions for the kinds of people and organizations that experts consider to included in Al Qaeda. Click here to read the results.

In the second part, we're looking at what specific organizations those same experts consider to be part of the U.S. government's mandate to wage war against Al Qaeda. The answers are, again, interesting, showing a lack of consensus on key groups, and they do not always sync with the definitions identified in the first question. The bar charts below are once again thanks to Clint Watts of SelectedWisdom.com who also set up the survey page and collected and coded its results.

The survey asked respondents to comment on the following groups. The percentage of "yes" answers is given for each organization. Questions which did not achieve a two-thirds consensus are marked in yellow, questions which were close to a 50-50 split are marked in red.

Organization	Yes votes
Al Qaeda in Afghanistan	96.3%
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula	94.5%
Al Qaeda in Iraq	92.7%
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb	81.5%
Al Shabab	58.2%
Lashkar e Tayyibah	48.1%
Afghan Taliban	50.4%
Tehrik e Taliban	50.9%
Haqqani Network	53.7
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group	31.7
Revolution Muslim	26.7

Once you get past the groups with Al Qaeda in the name, consensus rapidly fell apart in this segment of the survey.



Responses on whether the Taliban should be considered part of Al Qaeda split almost perfectly down the middle, with different groups of respondents coming in all over the map. Academics voted no by two-thirds, while their students voted yes by the same amount. I find that disconnect pretty interesting. Government employees voted yes by just 55.5 percent. Media voted yes by 57.1 percent, and private sector voted no by 54.3 percent.

The status of the Taliban is a crucial question in the wsr in Afghanistan, as the U.S. considers negotiations with the Taliban as part of its withdrawal from Afghanistan. The differences among the various sectors of respondents are less important than the fact that no more than two-thirds of any given segment could agree on the question. Given that no one in government has ever seriously broached the idea that the U.S. could negotiate with Al Qaeda, the question is not a light one.



Pakistani militant group Lashkar e Tayyiba has shared facilities with Al Qaeda Central and provided support to AQC personnel. It would seem to qualify (at best) under "nominally independent extremist networks that provide significant services used in Al Qaeda operations,such as training camps or money laundering." Voters on Question One split 50-50 on whether that description could be considered part of Al Qaeda.

About the same percentage of respondents were willing to include LeT in the U.S. mandate to wage war on Al Qaeda than the Afghan Taliban, whose overt alliance with Al Qaeda was responsible for the invasion of Afghanistan in the first place.

Academics voted "no" by 71.4 percent, while government and media voted no by two-thirds and 62.5 percent respectively. Students and the private sector voted yes by 65.7 percent and 75 percent respectively. Government and academics as a combined group voted no by 68.7 percent, suggesting that there is more agreement among those in a position to know than the overall number might indicate.

Similar numbers were seen on the Haqqani network, within academics voting no by 65 percent, government almost evenly split, and media, private and student groups all voting yes by varying margins. I'd be interested to revisit this question in light of the CTC at West Point paper published this week by Dan Rassler and Vahid Brown on the Haqqani network's interconnections with Al Qaeda.

Outside of Af-Pak, Al Shabab is certainly one of the more pressing questions in counterterrorism at the moment. The Question One category best fitting Al Shabab based on open-source data at the time the survey was taken was "organizations whose leaders have publicly expressed loyalty to AQ or its emir," for which respondents could not come to a consensus, splitting 60-40 in favor of inclusion. Academics split on the question 61 percent against inclusion, while government responders could only muster a slim 52 percent support.

The survey was conducted prior to recent allegations of operational links between Al Shabab and AQAP and a corresponding uptick in U.S. strikes in Somalia. As the American CT effort in Shabab grows, the question of its classification also grows. The breakdown among professions shows very sharp divisions among different groups as to whether Shabab should be part of the U.S. war against Al Qaeda:



Academics voted "no" by a strong majority of 71.5 percent, while government employees voted "yes" by a less convincing 59.2 percent. The government vote is particularly interesting since, individual views aside, the Obama administration has made it crystal clear over the last several days that Shabab is on its targeting list. With votes from both groups taken together, 54.2 percent voted "yes," indicating a massive lack of consensus.

Once you get past those two key demographics, media respondents split 50-50 on the question of Shabab, whereas students and the private sector relatively strongly voted to include the Somali militant group, by 76.5%.

The next post on the survey, probably next week some time, will look at individual people and whether they are considered part of Al Qaeda. These results are all over the map and the most erratic of all three polls when evaluated on a factual basis and in comparison to the principles outlined in Question One, so be sure to check back.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda-In-Iraq, Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Al-Shabab, AQAP, AQIM, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Survey, Taliban

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Surveillance Footage Shot By American Terrorist David Headley In Mumbai

The clip above consists of surveillance footage made by Chicago-based terrorist David Headley in Mumbai, India, where he was conducting surveillance for the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba with support from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI). Headley's videos were used to carry out the 2008 Mumbai massacre. For more about Headley, check out Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam, the new book by J.M. Berger, on sale now.

Labels: David-Coleman-Headley, ISI, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mumbai

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink