Post Modern Terrorism

[Mediocrates]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/416810.html

Post-modern terrorism: suicide strikes

By Amnon Barzilai

"Fighting against suicide bombers, you have to follow the assumptions that modern society uses when confronting viral epidemics," says Dr. Hanan Shai (Schwartz), an Israel Defense Forces reserve colonel and an expert on political and military strategy.

Dr. Shai expounded this thesis in an address to the first international conference on limited conflict, held in March in Tel Aviv, and sponsored by the IDF. Shai admits that the analogy between human beings and viruses sounds infelicitous, however, he adds, "The confrontation with terror wrought by suicide strikers is like the fight against viruses in terms of the inability to seize the [terror] leaders and the visibility of the suicide assailants. The remedy in the fight against terror can be compared to medicine against viruses."

Alongside his academic work - at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University, Shai serves as a strategic consultant for the defense establishment. Among other subjects, his expertise extends to the topic of asymmetric warfare. Shai contends that military commanders in the Western world, along with academics who deal with military-strategic studies, have failed to draw a genuine distinction between terror caused by suicide strikers and other forms of terror. One conclusion he reaches in his work is that "in wars fought by regular armies against terror organizations or entities which do not have an army, and especially in the fight against suicide strike terrorists, the assassination of leaders is legitimate."

As a strategic consultant, Shai has ready access to offices of top IDF officers. Some of them trained under him. In the early 1980s, after studying the performance of officers during the Yom Kippur and Lebanon Wars, Shai concluded that the IDF's senior officer corps lacked knowledge in the art of warfare. He proposed new courses of study, and the IDF General Staff supported his initiative: Shai headed the founding staff of the IDF Staff and Command College, and then became the institute's first director.

From 1983-1988, after being promoted to full colonel, he headed the Command & Control Systems and Doctrines Branch at the IDF. Shai observes that nomenclature for types of warfare that has been coined in recent decades - terms such as asymmetrical warfare and low intensity conflict - is not new. Great army commanders in the past confronted problems of asymmetrical warfare, terror and guerrilla conflict. But in this historic context, suicide strikers pose an unprecedented and extraordinary challenge.

Suicide terrorists, contends Shai, represent a type of warfare that civilization has never experienced. Such terror strives to return human society to circumstances that held thousands of years ago, to early pagan periods before monotheistic codes were upheld. Faith in one God sanctified the value of human life - this value did not apply in pagan times, Shai believes.

"The battlefield is an arena of uncertainty, but it is not a theater of chaos," claims Shai. "Paradoxically, the human thirst for life enabled human warfare to be waged in a logical fashion, in a manner consistent with principles and moral codes. The value of life created circumstances in which it became possible for the losing side to surrender, either because of the lack of utility to be gained from continued fighting, or because of the heavy price to be paid for refusal to surrender. The effort to force the enemy to surrender, and not to massacre it, runs like a supplementary thread throughout the history of warfare, alongside the death and destruction. Some of the great military commanders became exemplary figures because they forced their enemies to make a choice, to decide between alternatives of continued fighting or surrender; the option of surrender led to a relatively low level of casualties for both sides."

Suicide strikes, Shai argues, represent a post-modern form of terror. They differ from modern warfare in several respects. Perhaps the most conspicuous difference relates to the objective. In modern warfare, antagonists on both sides of the conflict have an identical purpose - to attain prosperity and happiness in this world. In post-modern conflict, the aggressor side lacks an interest in victory. In many cases, the objective is the struggle itself - the goal is to sow destruction, despair and fear, while enduring enormous pain and sacrifice, which guarantee bliss in the next world. Such wars cannot conclude with anything other than the destruction of the enemy, says Shai. The suicide terrorist phenomenon, he adds, leads to the erosion of the values of civil society. It breeds escapism, and the cheapening of human life.

Shai says these conclusions have yet to be learned by Western society.

Shai: "Western society didn't grasp soon enough that it is facing an enemy that goes into battle in the expectation that it will not come out alive. This is a new situation."

Can you discern any logic in suicide strike terror?

Shai: "Those who are behind the suicide strikes have an objective, a strategy and a system. The aim of the terror, as its perpetrators announce, is to destroy open society and the advances of modern life. Their strategy relies on exploiting the advantages of open society in order to reap chaos - in order to protect itself against such terror, modern society will gradually have to become totalitarian. The system is the placement of suicide strikers within open society, and attacking that society from within - bin Laden's idea is one of evil genius. Via a relatively small amount of terror attacks and of the loss of life and property, bin Laden has significantly damaged individual rights, compared to the situation before September 11, 2001.

"Today travelers to New York and Washington are prohibited from standing up on flights, even to go to the bathroom - such a right was not even denied to prisoners in the Soviet gulag."

How can Western society defend itself against suicide terrorists?

"Warfare against suicide bombers, even if it is waged the right way, cannot bring about a strategic victory. Take, for example, the U.S. Army. Fighting the Iraqi army, the American forces had no problem. But in a conflict against the various tribal groups in Iraq, they have a problem. Their army isn't built for this sort of conflict, and it has become ineffective. That's what happened in Vietnam. It's only a matter of time before the Americans do one of two things: they will use a nuclear bomb, or they'll get out of there by the skin of their teeth. It all depends upon the number of casualties that mount there."

Will the next stage involve a mega-terror attack?

"If the enemy is smart, it won't carry out a mega attack. An attack of that scope will give legitimacy to the sort of response that would not be utilized in other circumstances, for moral reasons."

So this means that Western society is helpless in the confrontation with suicide terrorists?

"In the era of suicide strike terror, the army has lost its monopoly on warfare. So warfare must be moved to another level. Terror should be severed from all the sources that allow it to operate. In this connection, I bring up the example of the world's preparation in the fight against the SARS epidemic. You have to fight against terror as you fight against viruses.

"Terror is invisible. Terror cells in the U.S. are amorphous. Still, an extraordinary amount of planning and coordination is needed to carry out a terror attack of the scale of September 11, 2001 in the U.S. It takes a lot of money. Everything runs through a leadership, which is located far away. And this leadership uses systems which modern society has itself developed: computerized banking, cell phones, the Internet. These are achievements of modern society and terror capitalizes on them."

Shai continues: "Modern society has an advantage in that all of the attainments are its own. Societies and countries that provide support to terror can be cut off from the systems of modern society. Intelligence, not force, is needed in the fight against terror. We must move warfare from the military battlefield to the economic-financial-media arena. This will be a global blitzkrieg - countries or societies supporting terror will be isolated in a forthright, complete manner."

The world will agree to this?

"Society must understand that there is a problem threatening it. The enemy creates chaos. Suicide bombings create chaos on the battlefield. An antagonist has arisen that cannot be threatened or deterred. This is what society still fails to understand. And even when it grasps the reality, there remains the problem of forging a consensus due to tensions in society between various values: liberty, truth, nationalism."

"As in the fight against a virus, we must take a small part of the virus itself in order to develop antibodies, and so strengthen our resistance. We will have to adopt a limited amount of totalitarianism as a defense against complete totalitarianism. For instance: the Internet is supposed to be an open, free system. When there is no other alternative, security systems of supervision and monitoring must be utilized, as a counter-weight [to the use of the Net by terrorists]."

[Mediocrates]

Do you believe it is legitimate to kill terrorist leaders?

"War is generally conducted between armies; each side tries to convince the other that it is stronger. When the other side does not build an army, and relies instead on something amorphous, you face moral questions. If you have sophisticated technology enabling you to reach the [terror] leaders and convince the other side [of your strength] by making a direct strike, and if you do so without causing collateral damage, such [assassinations] are entirely logical."

Shai lists four reasons explaining why there has not yet been a global effort to defeat suicide terrorists:

"First, there has been a failure to understand that the suicide terrorists have effectively disarmed armies. Second, there is a problem fighting an enemy which believes that any means can be used to attain its goals. Third, there has been financial and moral support for the Palestinians, even though they utilize suicide terror. By giving such support, modern society legitimizes the use of suicide terror against itself, not just by Islam but also by cultures that bear grudges against it owing to past conquests and to the subjugation of Third World states, economies and societies to large Western corporations.

"The fourth reason is European hesitation. Europe created modernity, but it also fostered movements that virtually destroyed modern society and the world at large. History proves that Europe lacks the ability to identify horrible threats posed to it from outside and from within." The U.S., Shai adds, has aroused Europe from a false set of assumptions, and a series of errors. However, he concludes, "there is reason to criticize the U.S. for not being forthright enough in terms of grabbing the reins in the global struggle against terror."

[Batman]

excellent points I am linking this! thanks

[Mediocrates]

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/watch/Policywatch/policywatch2004/851.htm


(Recommended reading on the strategic implications)
POLICYWATCH
Number 851 March 30, 2004

AL-QAEDA: A WHOLE DIFFERENT BALL GAME

By Zohar Palti


Thirty months after the massive World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, al-Qaeda is a significantly different organization, thanks to the successful efforts of the U.S.-led war on terror. It would be wrong, however, to assume that the threat of "global jihad" posed by al-Qaeda has diminished just because the organization itself is weakened. More accurately, al-Qaeda has adjusted to the relentless assault on its leadership structure by devolving into a set of regional networks -- each with its own political agenda and operational schedule, as a whole lacking a distinct command center.

Success in the Hunt

The Afghanistan war effectively removed al-Qaeda's safe haven, forcing it on the run and in search of an alternative operational area. The northern Iraq-Iran border area, where Ansar al-Islam (a local Kurdish fundamentalist group closely affiliated with al-Qaeda) was based, might have provided temporary refuge, but since that area has also been taken over by American troops, the network is now essentially without a solid footing.

The global hunt orchestrated by the United States (and assisted by many countries, including Arab states) for al-Qaeda's operational and logistical leaders has yielded impressive results. Many central members of the organization's pre-September 11 command have been arrested or killed: Mohamed Atef, Osama bin Laden's deputy, killed in November 2001; Khaled Shaykh Mohamed, September 11 mastermind and head of al-Qaeda's operational division, arrested in February 2003; Abu Zubaydah, a senior operative, arrested in March 2002; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a central member of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell, arrested in September 2002; Abu Yasir al-Jazairi, a senior logistics operative, arrested in March 2003; and Tawfiq bin Attash, an operative, arrested in April 2003. Hundreds of additional al-Qaeda activists have also been arrested or killed, among them Ali Qaed Sinan al-Harthi, head of al-Qaeda activities in Yemen; Abed al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an operations commander; Riduan Isamuddin (also known as Hambali), operational head of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya in Southeast Asia, also responsible for the October 2002 Bali attack.

Key al-Qaeda operatives still active include Osama bin Laden himself; his son Saad; Ayman al-Zawahiri, a top al-Qaeda deputy; Fazul Abdullah Mohamed, operational head of al-Qaeda's East African arena; and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior operative responsible for the November 2002 assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman. Zarqawi is a rising star in al-Qaeda, even though he was not among the first-tier leadership at the time of the September 11 attacks. In allowing Zarqawi, once considered a negligible figure, to gain considerable power, al-Qaeda portrays itself as an organization under pressure, adjusting to new circumstances. Indeed, Zarqawi's promotion suggests that anyone capable of carrying out terrorist attacks against U.S. interests is welcome in the organization and will be provided with sufficient funds to carry out those objectives.

Current Trends

Despite convincing war-on-terror dividends, al-Qaeda's overall survivorship poses a real challenge to the United States. The network currently operates in two parallel trajectories, one dedicated to conducting effective terrorist attacks on high-priority American or Western targets, and a second focused on Iraq, an attractive objective because of the strong U.S. presence there. Although al-Qaeda has failed to carry out a significant attack against a target in the United States since the hunt for the group's leaders was set in motion, the network will continue to prepare for major, September 11-style attacks. Al-Qaeda funding is still flowing, and its logistical activity is still functioning effectively. Given that the network has lost most of its strategic assets in Afghanistan and other arenas, and that its operational leadership is now isolated, the group will find it more difficult to carry out mega attacks. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda remains capable of producing scenarios such as exploding commercial Western aircraft or suicide bombing in civilian environments (similar to the recent attack in Madrid). Moreover, the highly fragmented nature of the organization, its decentralized leadership, and the elimination of definable targets will make it nearly impossible for the United States to retaliate militarily.

In the meantime, Iraq is emerging as the main operational arena for international terrorists, as Islamists around the world are called upon by Osama bin Laden to join the jihadist crusade against American troops there. Iraq serves as a relatively convenient arena because of its geography, radicalized culture, lack of a stable regime, and heavy U.S. presence. Indeed, hundreds of activists from mujahedin networks associated with al-Qaeda have entered Iraq to actively participate in terrorist operations alongside the Zarqawi apparatus and Ansar al-Islam. Additional arenas where the al-Qaeda network has the potential to flourish are Southeast Asia, Africa, and Chechnya, mainly because of the preponderance of fragile regimes in those regions; and Western Europe, where terrorist groups can take advantage of the freedoms offered by comparatively open societies.

Prospects

Despite U.S. achievements in weakening the structure of al-Qaeda, the complex realities in Iraq along with other rising threats against the United States could eclipse those gains. In his February testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA director George Tenet emphasized that "the steady growth of Osama bin Laden's anti-U.S sentiment through the wider Sunni extremist movement, and the broad dissemination of al-Qaeda's destructive expertise, ensure that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future -- with or without al-Qaeda in the picture." Indeed, Tenet's testimony suggested that a "growing number of jihadists [are] interested in attacking the United States . . . the homeland." The successful American pursuit of al-Qaeda leaders has effectively eliminated a tier in the organizational chain of command, creating a gap between Osama bin Laden and lower-level activists. But bin Laden's ideology has not been vanquished. It is alive and well, spreading to local groups that seek to carry out the legacy of "global jihad." These groups remain fixated on destroying America and its Western values -- a reality that will perpetuate the war on terror indefinitely.

As al-Qaeda continues to serve as an inspirational model, it will, more than ever, come to depend on local organizations operationally. In addition, state sponsors like Iran will continue to act by proxy and sponsor sleeper-cell networks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other states with American interests. Iran and Syria possess different strategic options than al-Qaeda or the Taliban, a reality that would challenge the United States should it decide to dismantle the weapons-of-mass-destruction or terror infrastructures of these state sponsors by military action.

The effort to preempt Islamist terror will be strengthened by continued close cooperation between the United States and other countries. Without this synergy and dependence on local intelligence and law enforcement capacities, it will be almost impossible to effectively eradicate the local terror networks aspiring to grow beyond their indigenous operating environments.

[i]Col. Zohar Palti (Israel Defense Forces) is a visiting military fellow at The Washington Institute.

[Mediocrates]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2097370

Jihad Without End
The Madrid bombings weren't about Iraq.

By Lee Smith


Last week was a mixed one for the international jihadist movement. Some sources are now reporting that the March 11 Madrid bombings were the work of a Moroccan group known as Salafia Jihadia, also responsible for the bombings that killed 33 in Casablanca last May. However, the day the jihadists enjoyed one of their greatest successes, they also suffered a major loss, when the Chad military, aided by U.S. armed forces, killed 43 members of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. (Apparently, the battle began in Niger, which borders Algeria, and eventually spilled over into Chad.)

Salaf means "predecessor," and it's used to refer to Muslim fundamentalists who disdain any innovation after the prophet Mohammed, his companions, and a few generations immediately following them. Salafism is the polite word for Wahabbism. So, besides the fact that both groups seem to have pledged some sort of allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, there's probably no connection between them.

Indeed, Algeria and Morocco, while neighbors, seem to be worlds apart. Algeria still hasn't quite emerged from the civil war that cost more than 100,000 lives throughout the 1990s. Morocco's romantic allure still draws tourists hoping to capture some of the vestigial panache of Bogart and Bergman's complicated love affair, or at least some of the fumes from Paul Bowles' hash pipe.

One difference between the two countries is that while Algeria's military-backed regime is still in a pitched battle with its Islamist groups, Morocco's 40-year-old King Muhammad VI has allowed Islamists a certain amount of participation in the political process. Still, many believe the biggest difference is their recent pasts: Morocco was a French* and Spanish protectorate until 1956, a relatively mild form of European colonialism compared with France's brutal 130-year occupation of Algeria, which didn't end until 1962. True enough, but it's useful to recall that the Arabs were also colonialists. The Arabic name for Morocco is al-Maghreb, the place where the sun set on the westernmost limit of the 8th-century Arab empire.

The Arabs conquered the Berbers, a general term encompassing numerous tribes throughout western North Africa, whose warrior ethos they put to good use. It was a largely Berber army, led by a Berber general, that conquered Spain in 711. The Berbers were, by and large, enthusiastic converts to Islam, perhaps a little too fervent for some of the ruling Arab elite. Unlike the Arabs, who fought just for plunder, the Berbers believed that they waged war to glorify Islam.

These kinds of issues about authenticity and identity—who's a real Muslim, who's a real Arab or a real Berber—are often present in colonial and post-colonial societies. And the issues are a problem now in both countries, though they are much more severe in Algeria, where there are serious tensions between Arabs and Berbers. The question is: After 1,200 years, how can you tell exactly who's got what blood? Also: Why is a recent colonial incursion more harmful to a native population than an older one that has had that much more time to play havoc on a people's psyche?

That's not to say that the Moroccans don't have live issues with the Spanish. For instance, in July 2002 the two countries tussled over a small rocky island—Perejil in Spanish, Leila in Arabic—of no apparent strategic value. (See this "International Papers" for more on the dispute.) Now one source reports that because of the dispute, for 18 months the two countries suspended counterterrorism cooperation that might have prevented last week's attacks. In the future, further trouble might come from Ceuta and Melilla, two fishing towns on Morocco's Mediterranean coast, which Spain refuses to abandon.

If the Spanish electorate believed that committing 1,300 troops to Iraq had needlessly exposed it to the jihadists' ire, it ought to reconsider the 6,000 Spanish forces stationed in Ceuta and Melilla. The Spanish, whose new prime minister is fond of the word "occupation," say there's nothing unusual about having so many troops in Spanish cities. But these cities are not in Spain. Already some Islamist ideologues are beginning to group Ceuta and Melilla together with Palestine and Kashmir as Muslim lands to be liberated. Even if that seems far-fetched, both towns are notorious for narcotics smuggling, and where there are drugs in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Middle East, an Islamist group is usually not far behind to partake of the profits. Hezbollah, for instance, is a significant player in the drug trade, an enterprise Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat also has a hand in. May my Spanish grandmother forgive me for saying so, but her countrymen appear to be flourishing a big red cape at the Islamists, who will gladly remind them that "Olé" is a corruption of "Allah."

After all, when al-Qaida lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri referred to "the tragedy of al-Andalus," he wasn't pining for what the Spanish call the "convivencia," when Muslims, Christians, and Jews all lived together in relative harmony. That picture of Muslim Spain is undoubtedly a little over-gilded, but it's good that the myth of al-Andalus continues to fund the world's imagination. Without the legend of peaceful co-existence, a city like New York—where Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others get along handsomely—would've been much more difficult to conceive.

At any rate, there was trouble in al-Andalus long before Ferdinand and Isabella banished the Muslims and the Jews in 1492. Two of the more serious challenges came from Morocco in the late 11th and then 12th century, first the Almoravids and then the Almohads, both of them Berber dynasties and Muslim fundamentalists.

Almoravid is a Hispanicized version of the Arabic word "al-Murabitun," or "those of the military encampment." As Richard Fletcher writes in Moorish Spain, the Almoravids "saw their role as one of purifying religious observance by the re-imposition where necessary of the strictest canons of Islamic orthodoxy." They came to redeem a weakened Muslim state against the Christians. Once the Almoravids got soft, the Almohads, still more theologically austere, came north to replace them. Almohad is a corruption of "al-Muwahhidun," or "those who profess the oneness of God." It is an Arabic word still in usage; in fact it is the other polite way to say Wahabbi.

After the Madrid attacks, a number of journalists, academics, and other experts picked up on the idea, perhaps most fully expressed in Jason Burke's book Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, that al-Qaida may not be what many people think it is. It's not one vast organization with tentacles everywhere; it's a kind of franchise that helps with cash here, logistics there. Most important, it is the brand name of an umbrella ideology that all the jihadists subscribe to, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and Salafia Jihadia, among others. Bin Laden is just the public face.

Looking at the Almohad and Almoravids, one might make the further point that jihadism is not just international, it's also a deeply ambitious ideological movement that feeds on its own thousand-plus-year history of extreme violence and revulsion for anything that is not itself.

Correction, March 19, 2004: This article originally called Morocco a former "Spanish protectorate." In fact, both France and Spain ruled parts of Morocco until 1956. Return to the corrected sentence.

Lee Smith, who lives in Brooklyn, is writing a book on Arab culture.

[TheyAre]

I have to disagree with most of Shai's conclusions. His analysis seems wrapped up far too much in simply looking from one perspective when examining terrorism. Marx made the same mistake when he boldly declared that everything delves from economics.

[USAF Airman]

Just a question from an external viewpoint from a US military person looking at the whole Hamas issue...

Why is the world allowing terrorism to continue in Israel with Islamic Jihad and Hamas roaming free without the slightest slap on the hand from other countries?

If this were happening to America lets say Canada was wanting to invade or start sending in suicide bombers daily, don't you think that they (Canada) would be glowing in the dark by now?

**[Don't flame me about suggesting we bomb Canada, I'm just using that as an example.]

[Mediocrates]

Improvements in Western Intelligence

By Fred Burton

Western tensions over the safety of corporate assets in the
Middle East -- particularly in Saudi Arabia -- have ratcheted
higher during the past month amid a stream of government security
warnings and several deadly attacks and militant shootouts.

Though the concerns and the level of violence within Saudi Arabia
are hardly unprecedented, the credibility of alerts issued by the
United States and other Western governments is on the rise.
Consider the following examples:

* April 13: The United States issued a Warden Message cautioning
Westerners about threats against diplomatic and other official
facilities and neighborhoods in Riyadh. Two days later, a U.S.
travel warning "strongly urged" Americans to leave the kingdom.
On April 19 and 20, Saudi officials announced seizures of
vehicles carrying explosives. On April 21, a car bomb was
detonated in front of a Saudi intelligence facility in Riyadh,
killing several people.

* April 27: Jordanian officials claimed to have foiled an al
Qaeda chemical bomb plot targeting the country's intelligence
services. The plot allegedly involved trucks packed with 20 tons
of explosives.

* April 29: The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide
caution, warning of deep concerns over the safety of U.S.
interests abroad -- and noting that government officials have not
ruled out a nonconventional al Qaeda attacks in the United States
or elsewhere. On May 1, gunmen killed five Westerners --
including two Americans -- at the offices of Swiss oil contractor
ABB Lummus in Yanbu. The shooters later were praised in a
statement, purportedly from al Qaeda's top official in Saudi
Arabia, carried on the Islamist Web site Sawt al-Jihad.

* European security services recently have announced several
militant roundups and "foiled plots" against specific targets. On
April 21, British newspapers reported the discovery of a bombing
plot against a football stadium -- possibly the field used by
Manchester United -- and the arrest of 10 suspects. A well-placed
counterterrorism source later told Stratfor that the sweep -- the
second major roundup in Britain in less than a month -- was
conducted less to thwart a specific attack than as a very public
pre-emptive action to reassure citizens of their safety. On May
4, Turkish police said they detained 16 suspected members of the
al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Islam, accused of planning bombing
attacks against the NATO summit that is scheduled to take place
in Istanbul in June.

The contrast with past intelligence warnings is stark: In
December 2003, the State Department authorized the voluntary
departure of diplomats' family members -- but more than a month
after the bombing of a Western housing compound in Riyadh killed
17 people. A similar communique, which ordered the departure of
nonessential U.S. personnel and their dependents, was issued May
13, 2003 -- a day after another housing compound bombing that
claimed 34 lives.

Taken together, the recent incidents indicate the United States
and its allies are armed with increasingly actionable
intelligence from their sources in the Middle East, Pakistan and
elsewhere. Although al Qaeda might remain, in the intelligence
community's words, a "ghost" or an elusive hydra, the community's
failures prior to the Sept. 11 attacks no longer can justify
ongoing complacency toward its warnings about the risks of
attacks. The government alerts also cannot be dismissed merely as
attempts to elicit "chatter" or otherwise improve officials' view
into the threat from radical Islam.

These events indicate that at least some parts of the U.S.
counterterrorism community have reached a crucial milestone in
their operational and analytical capabilities -- which aids their
ability to predict al Qaeda's next moves and other emerging
threats. It is in light of this assessment that threats issued
specifically against the domestic United States, in addition to
Western assets overseas, could be viewed as credible.

Security Cooperation: An Improving View

One of the first questions this assessment raises is whether this
same level of intelligence capability exists globally, or merely
in a few isolated regions?

While it is clear some weaknesses remain -- for example,
Washington had no warning prior to the March 11 train bombings in
Madrid -- it appears that U.S. counterterrorism collection has
improved greatly in the past few months. Sources in Washington
tell Stratfor that both human intelligence and technical
collection capabilities -- such as wiretaps and other methods --
significantly have increased in conjunction with coordinated
intelligence and law enforcement efforts around the world.
Western intelligence services and analytical think tanks -- such
as MI6, the Center for Strategic International Studies and the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation -- along with the
services of "friendly" Middle Eastern nations such as Jordan,
specifically have aided Washington's tactical and strategic
capabilities and helped in interdicting attacks.

[Mediocrates]

Moreover, foiled attacks and post-op investigations in other
countries, such as Britain and Spain, have yielded a flurry of
data: Pocket litter from detainees, phone numbers, forensic
evidence, fingerprints, travel documents and other items can be
shared with allied intelligence services to generate new leads
for counterterrorism officials to run down.

It is conceivable these achievements prompted the allegedly
planned or actual attacks against the allied intelligence
services in Riyadh and Amman in recent weeks.

The U.S. Risk Environment

For its part, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security also has
grown increasingly proactive in the wake of the March 11 attacks
in Spain, turning its passenger screening efforts to the nation's
rail system -- doubtless armed with intelligence that indicated
rail and bus lines were vulnerable to a Madrid-style strike.
Trusted law enforcement sources tell Stratfor they are watching
for threats to bomb buses during the summer travel season (likely
as the result of human intelligence reports or interrogation of
al Qaeda suspects), though some commercial bus lines still do not
employ luggage-screeners.

Stratfor previously predicted that a terrorist attack is
possible, if not likely, within the United States prior to the
November presidential elections. Logic reinforces this view from
both a geostrategic and tactical standpoint.

Though it has not achieved its goal of ousting any secular
governments within the Muslim world, al Qaeda learned in Spain
that it is possible, with a well-timed attack, to overturn a
sitting government in the Western Hemisphere; in its view, few
prizes could be greater than forcing U.S. President George W.
Bush out of office. U.S. government officials appear to support
this view: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice recently
said the opportunity for terrorists to impact the presidential
election would "be too good to pass up," and the April 29 warning
issued by the State Department also concludes that al Qaeda might
attempt "a catastrophic attack" within the United States.

Where might such an attack occur?

In light of the recent plots targeting the Jordanian and Saudi
intelligence services, it would seem that CIA headquarters in
Langley, Va., or Britain's MI6 headquarters could be targets --
though they would not be easily struck. Langley, for example, has
an excellent standoff perimeter to protect it from Oklahoma City-
style truck bombings. Militants would need some way of getting
past those defenses -- such as a fuel-laden aircraft or a Jordan-
style tactical operation, using a designated team to eliminate
guards and move the truck bomb within striking distance of the
buildings.

Much more vulnerable targets, in our view, are likely to be found
in Washington, D.C. (a symbolic city, where the brain trust of
"Crusader" actions against the Middle East is found); New York
City (the nation's economic hub, and home to a large Jewish
population); and Texas -- Bush's backyard -- though visible
targets are more easily found in major cities such as Houston or
Dallas than in the capital city of Austin.

West Coast cities such as Los Angeles -- where several plots
reportedly have been foiled -- also cannot be discounted as
targets: Al Qaeda has shown a propensity in the past to return
time and again to favored fishing holes. Such cities also are
home to major corporations, which carry political, symbolic and
strategic value: Al Qaeda believes that if the U.S. economy
crashes, the war effort overseas could not continue. In one of
the most recent tape recordings attributed to him, Osama bin
Laden specifically mentioned some American corporations as likely
targets.

Though there is no hard evidence, logic argues that the next
major attack within the United States or allied countries could
just as easily be a "dirty bomb" -- a possibility noted in the
April 29 State Department warning as well as by foreign security
services -- as a Madrid-style transportation bombing. Trusted
U.S. government sources say this is a viable attack scenario; and
it is not inconceivable that some type of chemical agent could be
dispersed through the use of an improvised explosive device. The
Jordanian authorities and the alleged leader of the foiled plot
in Amman claimed that attack was to have a chemical component,
though that claim is questionable. At any rate, chemicals such as
ammonia, chlorine or sodium cyanide are easily obtained when
compared to radioactive material or even anthrax, with its proven
panic potential.

The "shock and awe" psychological effects of such an attack would
ripple throughout the country and resonate as a great success
with Islamist radicals around the world -- a credibility coup for
which al Qaeda has been searching in order to further its own
political goals in the Middle East.

The point is not that al Qaeda could have new means or motives to
launch a dirty bomb attack -- this has been a U.S. fear, and
perceived risk, since Sept. 11. Rather, it is that the U.S.
intelligence community's increasingly proactive track record --
combined with the specificity of targets mentioned in recent
warnings and growing consensus about the window of opportunity
for a fresh attack -- lend a new aura of credibility and urgency
to ongoing warnings.

In the war against militant Islam, it seems the United States no
longer is flying completely blind.

Counterterrorism and security expert Fred Burton recently joined
Stratfor's executive staff. Click here
(http://stratfor.com/corp/Corporate.neo?s=MED) for more details
about his background and new role with Stratfor.

.................................................. ...............

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report may be used as a resource while accessing Stratfor website
products or consulting services, and may be freely redistributed to
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corporations, organizations or other commercial entities are not
authorized to distribute this intelligence report en masse without
prior written permission before publication. Upon receiving written
consent from Stratfor, the reprinted content must be appropriately
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address. Individuals, corporations, organizations or other
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.................................................. ...............

[Mediocrates]

Summary

A leading militant commander in Saudi Arabia has praised the May
1 attacks in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu. Details about the
attack suggest that jihadism might be becoming a grassroots
phenomenon. If so, the likelihood for and frequency of attacks
against Western and government facilities in the kingdom and
elsewhere will rise exponentially.

Analysis

Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, Saudi Arabia's top jihadist leader, issued
a statement May 6 praising the four Islamists who killed five
Western employees of oil contracting company ABB Lummus in the
Saudi city of Yanbu. Al-Mqurin urged other Saudis to follow their
example and carefully plan, prepare and execute similar attacks.

Stratfor indicated last week that many independent jihadist
groups had surfaced since the Sept. 11 attacks. The attack in
Yanbu indicates that the phenomenon might be entering a new phase
in which individuals acting alone or in small groups carry out
attacks.

If true, the multitude of individuals influenced by al Qaeda and
taking cues from other established groups will multiply, and
Yanbu-style attacks are likely to become much more frequent.

The widespread belief has been that the loss of Afghanistan as a
training ground put a dent into planning, preparation and
execution of operations -- particularly by novices. A successful
operation entails avoiding detection, engaging in surveillance
and training in weapons and explosives.

It appears that those at the helm of the Islamist militant
movement had contingency plans prepared in the event they lost
Afghanistan. Examining the behavior of the non-Afghan fighters
during the U.S. military campaign in fall 2001, there did not
appear to be much of an actual al Qaeda presence. Those who stood
their ground and fought the Americans were either Taliban or non-
Afghans foot soldiers. The veterans of al Qaeda training camps
relocated into other states before and during the war.

There have been reports that hundreds of al Qaeda operatives made
their way to other countries once they reached the Pakistani port
city of Karachi. Those 600 or so in custody at the detention
facility at Guantanamo, Cuba, appear to be mostly Taliban and al
Qaeda rank and file, who are at best foot soldiers and the
occasional seasoned operative. There are a handful of high-
profile al Qaeda members -- such as Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh
Muhammad and Ramzi bin al Shibh -- who have been nabbed and are
in detention at Bagram Air Base, Diego Garcia or other
undisclosed locations.

Jihadist communiques from the Arabian Peninsula and statements
from the Saudi and Yemeni governments show that many on their
wanted lists are veterans of the Afghan camps. These men safely
arrived at their destinations and might have started their own
groups. They also appear to have improvised tactics by avoiding
formal groups and staying away from training in the traditional
manner.

Despite the loss of the operational hub, the phenomenon of
jihadism is flourishing. In the interest of continued
proliferation, highly trained veterans are trying to disseminate
their tactical knowledge and experience through unorthodox means.
The al Bataar newsletter, released weekly from the Arabian
Peninsula, is one such outlet.

The authors of this publication have tried to simplify training
for the uninitiated so that they gradually develop the knowledge,
skills and abilities they would have acquired in Afghanistan. Al
Bataar offers crash courses on the particulars of planning a
successful operation, training and methods of maintaining
secrecy.

Stratfor sources say that some of the attackers had been employed
inside the company for as many as seven years. They say one of
the assailants during the shootout walked by a Philippine
employee and said, "You are not what we are looking for,"
indicating they were targeting Westerners. Another source says
two militants managed to escape from the scene.

Even a cursory examination of the Yanbu attack demonstrates that
it does not take a lot of training, ability or experience to pull
off such an operation. From the language used by al-Muqrin in his
statement praising the attackers, Yanbu was the work of
volunteers unaffiliated with any group. Three of them were
employed at ABB Lummus -- further reinforcing the notion that the
ideology of jihadism is being taken up by average Saudis, not
just social misfits.

The movement away from formal organizations by making training
lessons available in the public domain has allowed the jihadist
movement to sustain itself and tap into the grassroots of
society. This bodes ill for the security of foreign companies in
the kingdom -- and the future of the Saudi monarchy.


(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com

NOTIFICATION OF COPYRIGHT

The free Stratfor Intelligence Brief is published by Strategic
Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), and is protected by the United
States Copyright Act, all applicable state laws, and
international copyright laws. The content in this FIB may be used
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consulting services, and may be freely redistributed to friends
and associates without prior permission. Individuals,
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address. Individuals, corporations, organizations or other
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or distribute with the intent to sell, publish, or broadcast for
purposes of profit without prior written consent of Stratfor. Any
other use is prohibited and will constitute an infringement upon
the proprietary rights of Stratfor.

[Mediocrates]

The War that Dare Not Speak Its Name
The battle is against militant Islam, not "Terror"
by Andrew C. McCarthy

At any gathering of analysts, academics, and law-enforcement officers who specialize in counter-terrorism, it certainly is appropriate that we should focus on risks, responsibilities, and realities. My question, though, is whether we have the order backwards. Our most urgent imperative today is the need to confront reality. Only by doing that can we get a true understanding of the risks we face and our responsibilities in dealing with them.

What reality am I talking about?

Well, we are now well into the third year of what is called the "War on Terror." That is the language we all use, and it is ubiquitous. The tabloids and the more prestigious journals of news and opinion fill their pages with it. The 24-hour cable television stations are not content merely to repeat "War on Terror" as if it were a mantra; they actually use it as a floating logo in their dizzying set designs.

Most significant of all, the "War on Terror" is our government's top rhetorical catch-phrase. It is the way we define for the American people and the world — especially the Islamic world — what we are doing, and what we are about. It is the way we explain the nature of the menace that we are striving to defeat.

But is it accurate? Does it make sense? More importantly, does it serve our purposes? Does it make victory more identifiable, and hence more attainable? I humbly suggest that it fails on all these scores. This, furthermore, is no mere matter of rhetoric or semantics. It is all about substance, and it goes to the very core of our struggle.

Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method. It is the most sinister, brutal, inhumane method of our age. But it is nonetheless just that: a method. You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified — and identifiable — enemy.

In the here and now, that enemy is militant Islam — a very particular practice and interpretation of a very particular set of religious, political and social principles.

Now that is a very disturbing, very discomfiting thing to say in 21st-century America. It is very judgmental. It sounds very insensitive. It is the very definition of politically incorrect. Saying it aloud will not get you invited to chat with Oprah. But it is a fact. And it is important both to say it and to understand it.

We have a rich and worthy tradition of religious tolerance in America. Indeed, in many ways our reverence for religious practice and tolerance is why there is an America. America was a deeply religious place long before it was ever a constitutional democracy. That tradition of tolerance causes us, admirably, to bend over backwards before we pass judgment on the religious beliefs and religious practices of others. It is an enormous part of what makes America great.

It led our government, within hours of the 9/11 attacks, to announce to the world that Islam was not and is not our enemy. Repeatedly, the president himself has said it: "The 19 suicide terrorists hijacked a great religion." The message from all our top officials has been abundantly clear: "That's that; Islam off the table; no need to go deeper."

But we have the ostrich routine way too far. A commitment in favor of toleration is not the same as a commitment against examination. We have been so paralyzed by the fear of being portrayed as an enemy of Islam — as an enemy of a creed practiced by perhaps a billion people worldwide — that we've lost our voice on a very salient question: What will be the Islam of the 21st century? Will it be the Islam of the militants, or the Islam of the moderates? That's the reality we need to grapple with.

Let's make no mistake about this: We have a crucial national-security interest in the outcome of that struggle. We need the moderates to win. And here, when I speak of moderates, I am not talking about those who merely pay lip service to moderation. I am not talking about those who take advantage of America's benign traditions and our reluctance to examine the religious practices of others. I am not talking about those who use that blind eye we turn as an opportunity to be apologists, enablers, and supporters of terrorists.

I am talking about authentic moderates: millions of Muslims who want an enlightened, tolerant, and engaged Islam for today's world. Those people need our help in the worst way. They are losing the battles for their communities. The militants may not be a majority, but they are a vocal, aggressive minority — and they are not nearly as much of a small fringe as we'd like to believe.

As an assistant U.S. attorney, time and time again I heard it over the last decade, from ordinary Muslims we reached out to for help — people we wanted to hire as Arabic translators, or who were potential witnesses, or who were simply in a position to provide helpful information. People who were as far from being terrorists as you could possibly be. "I'd like to help the government," they would say, "but I can't." And it was not so much about their safety — although there was, no doubt, some of that going on. It was about ostracism.

Repeatedly they'd tell us that the militant factions dominated their communities. These elements were usually not the most numerous, but they were the most vocal, the best networked, the best funded, and the most intimidating. Consequently, people whose patriotic instinct was to be helpful could not overcome the fear that they and their families could be blackballed if it became known that they had helped the United States prosecute Muslim terrorists. The militants had the kind of suasion that could turn whole communities into captive audiences.

This is no small matter. Events of the last decade, throughout the world, are a powerful lesson that the more insular and dominated communities become, the more they are likely to breed the attitudes and pathologies that lead to terrorist plots and suicide bombings. It's true that suicide bombers seem to defy precise psychological profiling; they come from diverse economic and educational backgrounds — the only common thread seems to be devotion to militant Islam. But while we have not had success predicting who is likely to become a suicide bomber, it is far easier to get a read on where suicide bombers and other terrorists will come from. They come from communities where the militants dominate and those who don't accept their beliefs are cowed into submission.

SAVING OURSELVES, SAVING ISLAM
That militant Islam is our enemy is a fact. That it is the object of our war is a fact. That we need to empower real moderates is a fact. And we need to talk about these facts.

We are not helping the authentic moderates if we avoid having the conversation that so needs to be had if the militants hiding in the weeds we've created are going to be exposed and marginalized. If we fail to be critical, if we fail to provoke that discussion, it will continue to be militants who hold positions of influence and who control indoctrination in communities, madrassas, prisons, and other settings where the young, the vulnerable, and the alienated are searching for direction.

For ourselves too, and for the success of our struggle, we need to be clear that the enemy here is militant Islam. If we are to appreciate the risks to our way of life, and our responsibilities in dealing with them, we need to understand that we are fighting a religious, political and social belief system — not a method of attack, but a comprehensive ideology that calls for a comprehensive response.

In the 1990s, our response, far from being comprehensive, was one-dimensional. We used the criminal justice system. As an individual, I am very proud to have been associated with the good work done in that effort. Yet, if we are going to be honest with ourselves — if we are truly going to confront reality — as a nation, we'd have to call it largely a failure.

We have learned over the years that the militant population is large — maybe tens of thousands, maybe more. Certainly enough to staff an extensive international network and field numerous cells and small battalions that, in the aggregate, form a challenging military force. Nevertheless, in about a half dozen major prosecutions between 1993 and 2001, we managed to neutralize less than three-dozen terrorists — the 1993 World Trade Center bombers; those who plotted an even more ghastly "Day of Terror" that would have destroyed several New York City landmarks; the Manila Air conspirators who tried to blow U.S. airliners out of the sky over the Pacific; those who succeeded in obliterating our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and the would-be bombers of Los Angeles International Airport who were thwarted just before the Millennium celebration.

In these cases, we saw the criminal-justice response at its most aggressive, operating at a very high rate of success. Every single defendant who was charged and tried was convicted. As a practical matter, however, even with that rate of efficiency, we were able to neutralize only a tiny portion of the terrorist population.

Now, however, combining law enforcement with the more muscular use of military force — the way we have fought the battle since September 11 — we are far more effective. Terrorists are being rolled up in much greater numbers. They are being captured and killed. Instead of dozens being neutralized, the numbers are now in the hundreds and thousands.

But I respectfully suggest that this is still not enough, because it doesn't necessarily mean we are winning.

[Mediocrates]

WAR OF IDEAS
When I was a prosecutor in the 1980s, it was the "War on Drugs" that was all the rage. We would do mega-cases, make mega-arrests, and seize mega-loads of cocaine and heroin. It made for terrific headlines. It looked great on television. But we weren't winning. Neighborhoods were still rife with narcotics traffickers and all their attendant depravity. And there was the tell-tale sign: The price of drugs kept going down instead of up. We said we were at war, but with all we were doing we were still failing to choke off the supply chain.

Now I see another version of the same syndrome, and if we don't talk about Islam we will remain blind to it — to our great detriment. To understand why, all we need to do is think for a moment about the cradle-to-grave philosophy of Hamas. Yes, what blares on the news are suicide bombings that slaughter scores of innocents. But look underneath them, at what Hamas is doing day-to-day. They don't just run paramilitary training for adult jihadists. They start from the moment of birth. From infancy, hatred is taught to children. They learn to hate before they ever have a clue about what all the hatred is over. At home, in mosques, in madrassas, in summer camps — dressed in battle fatigues and hoods, and armed with mock weapons — it is fed to them.

And Hamas is not nearly alone. A funding spigot has been wide open for years. We are better about trying to shut it down than we used to be, but we're not even close to efficient yet. And even if we were to shut it down tomorrow, there are hundreds of millions — maybe more — already in the pipeline. Dollars that are contributed and controlled by the worst Wahhabist and Salafist elements. Those dollars are funding hatred. Hatred and the demonization of human beings simply because of who they are.

Some suggest that our situation might benefit from making accommodations — policy concessions that might mollify the militants and miraculously change their attitude toward us. But let's think about a five-year-old Muslim boy who has already gotten a sizable dose of the venom that is found in the madrassas and the Arabic media.

I can assure you that that five-year-old kid does not hate American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf. He does not hate the intractable nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. What he hates is Jews. What he hates is Americans. It is in the water he drinks and the air he breathes. Sure, as he grows, he'll eventually be taught to hate American foreign policy and what he'll forever be told is the "Israeli occupation." But those abstractions are not the source of the child's hatred, and changing them won't make the hatred go away — the hatred that fuels the killing.

When I say I worry that we could lose this struggle against militant Islam that we keep calling the "War on Terror," it is that fuel and that hatred I am talking about. We have the world's most powerful, competent military — it can capture and kill large numbers of terrorists. With the help of our law-enforcement and intelligence agencies — especially cutting off funding and cracking down on other kinds of material support — our unified government can make a sizable dent in the problem. It can give us periods like the last two years when there have been no successful attacks on our homeland — although it is hard to take too much comfort in that once you look at Bali, or Casablanca, or Istanbul, or Baghdad, or Madrid.

Yes, we can have temporary, uneasy respites from the struggle. We cannot win, however, until we can honestly say we are turning the tide of the numbers. The madrassas are like conveyor belts. If they are churning out more militants in waiting than we are capturing, killing, prosecuting, or otherwise neutralizing, then we are losing this war.

It's not enough to deplete the militants' assets. We need to defeat their ideas, and that means marginalizing their leaders. That means talking about how Islam assimilates to American ideals and traditions. It means making people take clear positions: making them stand up and be counted — and be accountable — not letting them hide under murky labels like "moderate".

As far as recognizing what we're really up against here, the terrorism prosecutions of the 1990s were a powerful eye-opener. We saw up close who the enemy was and why it was so crucial to be clear about it. Those cases are generally thought to have begun with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — a horror that oddly seems mild compared to the carnage we've witnessed in over a decade since. Yet, while that attack — the militants' declaration of war — began the string of terrorism cases, it was not really the start of the story.

That actually began years earlier. The men who carried out the World Trade Center bombing spent years training for it, mostly in rural outposts remote from Manhattan — like Calverton, Long Island, western Pennsylvania, and northern Connecticut. There, they drilled in shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and improvised explosive devices. From about 1988 on, they were operating here, and saw themselves as a committed jihad army in the making.

They were fully convinced that their religion compelled them to brutality. And unlike us, they had no queasiness: They were absolutely clear about who their enemy was. They did not talk in jingos about the "War on Freedom," or the "War on Liberty." They talked about the War on America, the War on Israel, and the War on West. They were plainspoken about whom they sought to defeat and why.

Their leader was a blind Egyptian cleric named Omar Abdel Rahman, the emir of an international terrorist organization called the "Islamic Group." This was a precursor of al Qaeda, responsible for the infamous 1981murder of Anwar Sadat for the great crime of making peace with Israel. Abdel Rahman continues to this day to have a profound influence on Osama bin Laden; his sons have been linked to al Qaeda, and one of bin Laden's demands continues to be that America free the "Blind Sheikh," who is now serving a life sentence.

Abdel Rahman laid out the principles of his terror group — including its American division — with alarming clarity: Authority to rule did not come from the people who are governed; it came only from Allah — a God who, in Abdel Rahman's depiction, was not a God of mercy and forgiveness, but a God of wrath and vengeance, and a God single-mindedly consumed with the events of this world. For the Blind Sheikh and his cohorts, there would be no toleration for other religions or other views. There was militant Islam, and there was everybody else.

All the world was divided into two spheres — and it is very interesting how those spheres were referred to: the first was Dar al Islam, or the domain of the Muslims; the second was Dar al Harb. You might assume that Dar al Harb would be the domain of the non-Muslims. It is not. It is instead the domain of war. The militants perceive themselves as in a constant state of war with those who do not accept their worldview.

Sometimes that war is hot and active. Sometimes it is in recess while the militants take what they can get in negotiations and catch their breath for the next rounds of violence. But don't be fooled: the war never ends — unless and until all the world accepts their construction of Islam.

As Abdel Rahman taught his adherents — and as the bin Ladens, the Zawahiris, and the Zarqawis echo today — the manner of prosecuting the never-ending war is jihad. This word is often translated as holy war; it more closely means struggle.

We hear a lot today from the mainstream media about jihad. Usually, it's a happy-face jihad, congenially rendered as "the internal struggle to become a better person," or "the struggle of communities to drive out drug peddlers," or "the struggle against disease, poverty and ignorance." In many ways, these reflect admirable efforts to reconstruct a very troubling concept, with an eye toward an Islam that blends into the modern world.

But let's be clear: these are reconstructions. Jihad, in its seventh-century origins, is a forcible, military concept. I realize politesse frowns on saying such things out loud, but one of the main reasons it is so difficult to discredit the militants — to say convincingly that they have hijacked a peaceable religion — is this: when they talk about this central tenet, jihad, as a duty to take up arms, they have history and tradition on their side. As Abdel-Rahman, the influential scholar with a doctorate from the famed al-Azhar University in Egypt, instructed his followers: "There is no such thing as commerce, industry, and science in jihad.... If Allah says: 'Do jihad,' it means jihad with the sword, with the cannon, with the grenades, and with the missile. This is jihad. Jihad against God's enemies for God's cause and his word."
So rich is the military pedigree of this term, jihad, that many of the apologists concede it but try a different tack to explain it away: "Sure, jihad means using force," they say, "but only in defense — only when Muslims are under attack." Of course, who is to say what is defensive? Who is to say when Muslims are under attack? For the militants, Islam is under attack whenever anyone has the temerity to say: "Islam — especially their brand of Islam — is not for me." For the militants who will be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of Israel, Islam is under attack simply because Israelis are living and breathing and going about their lives.

Simply stated, for Abdel Rahman, bin Laden, and those who follow them, jihad means killing the enemies of the militants — which is pretty much anyone who is not a militant. When your forces are outnumbered, and your resources are scarce, it means practicing terrorism.

[Mediocrates]

Abdel Rahman was brazen about it. As he said many times:

Why do we fear the word terrorist? If the terrorist is the person who defends his right, so we are terrorists. And if the terrorist is the one who struggles for the sake of God, then we are terrorists. We have been ordered to terrorism because we must prepare what power we can to terrorize the enemy of God. The Quran says the word "to strike terror." Therefore, we don't fear to be called terrorists. They may say, "He is a terrorist. He uses violence. He uses force." Let them say that. We are ordered to prepare whatever we can of power to terrorize the enemies of Islam.

It is frightening. But, as this makes clear, it is not simply the militants' method that we are at war with. We are at war with their ideology. Militant Islam has universalist designs. That sounds crazy to us — we're from a diverse, tolerant, live-and-let-live culture. It's hard for us to wrap our brains around a hegemonic worldview in the 21st Century. But if we are going to appreciate the risk — the threat — we face, the reality is: it matters much less what we think about the militants than what they think about themselves.

The militants see terrorism as a perfectly acceptable way to go about achieving their aims. When they succeed in destroying great, towering symbols of economic and military might; when with a few cheap bombs detonated on trains they can change the course of a national election; it reinforces their convictions that their designs are neither grandiose nor unattainable. It tells them that their method of choice works, no matter what we may think of it.

Making our task even more difficult is the structure of Islam. As Bernard Lewis and other notable scholars have observed, there are no synods, and there is no rigorous hierarchy. There is no central power structure to say with authority that this or that practice is heresy. There is no pope available to say, "Sheik Omar, blowing up civilians is out of bounds. It is condemned."

So how does the conduct become condemned? How do we turn the tide? Naturally, only Muslims themselves can cure Islam. Only they can ultimately chart their course; only they can clarify and reform where reform is so badly needed.

There is much, however, that we can do to help. It starts with ending the free ride for the apologists and enablers of terrorists. We need to be more precise in our language. We are not at war with terror. We are at war with militant Islam. Militant Islam is our enemy. It seeks to destroy us; we cannot co-exist with it. We need to defeat it utterly.

We seek to embrace moderate Muslims; to promote them, and to help them win the struggle for what kind of religious, cultural and social force Islam will be in the modern world. "Moderate," however, cannot just be a fudge. It needs to be a real concept with a defined meaning.

What should that meaning be? Who are we trying to weed out? Well, last year, the distinguished Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes proposed a few questions — a litmus test of sorts. Useful questions, he said, might include: Do you condone or condemn those who give up their lives to kill enemy civilians? Will you condemn the likes of al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah by name as terrorist groups? Is jihad, meaning a form of warfare, acceptable in today's world? Do you accept the validity of other religions? Should non-Muslims enjoy completely equal civil rights with Muslims? Do you accept the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry into the origins of Islam? Who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks? Do you accept that institutions that fund terrorism should be shut down?

To be sure, we should have no illusions about all this. We are never going to win every heart and mind. Asking these questions and questions like them, though, would provoke a very necessary conversation. It could begin to reveal who are the real moderates, and who are the pretenders. It could begin to identify who are the friends of enlightenment and tolerance, and who are the allies of brutality and inhumanity. It could begin the long road toward empowering our friends and marginalizing our enemies. Finally, it could make the War on Militant Islam a war we can win — for ourselves and for the millions of Muslims who need our help.

- Andrew C. McCarthy, a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman .

[Mediocrates]

http://www.stratfor.com/corporate/tstory.neo

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
http://www.stratfor.com/corporate/tstory.neo

USAF Airman not offended at all… nuking Canuckistan, for example. The US is entitled to secure and protect her sovereignty; as are all nations. Canuckistan’s smarmy and smugness of the past, hopefully, will change with our upcoming federal election. There are many pro-America Canadians in the great white north; nevertheless, we have been inundated with a leftist-Euro wannabe mindset for quite some time.
For several decades now, we’ve been dependent upon the good ol’ USA, to provide us with a peace of mind. As our governments in the past have rendered our military into a state of dry rot; we’ve become much more dependant. If, some in Canuckistan would spend less time and energy, blaming the US, for the ills of the world, and looked in their own backyard: perhaps, we would be less smug and more appreciative of our friend and neighbour.
I at times wonder, if, some folks up here would prefer China, North Korea and or Iran as our bordering neighbour. When listening to some of the moronic rhetoric, from the left, it seems to be so.

[Mediocrates]

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
08 June 2004

Saudi Oil Crown Slipping Away?

By Peter Zeihan

Summary

Attacks against expatriates working in the Saudi Arabian oil
patch have accelerated in tempo and intensity during the past
several months. If this trend is not reversed -- which is not
likely -- Riyadh will slowly fall from its current position as
the kingpin of global energy markets. Oil prices will be both
higher and more volatile, Saudi social stability far less
guaranteed and OPEC less a force to be reckoned with.

Analysis

The Saudi Energy Complex

Like many energy sectors outside the West, the Saudi energy
complex is run by a state monopoly, Saudi Aramco. Locals run most
of the business, but much of the technical work is done by a much
smaller cadre of expatriates who are either directly employed by
Saudi Aramco or work in a consultant-type relationship. In Saudi
Arabia, that "smaller cadre" is a group of approximately 100,000
Japanese and Western workers, about 65,000 of them citizens of
either the United States or the United Kingdom.

Most of our Saudi sources maintain that the Saudis themselves
manage the day-to-day tasks of pumping oil, collecting it for
shipment via pipelines and loading it into tankers. Meanwhile,
the expatriates are the brain trust of Saudi Aramco, handling
most relations with foreign customers, legal matters,
exploration, repairs to critical systems, expansion projects and
other advanced work. The expatriates also are the mechanism
through which new Western technology flows into the kingdom. The
hybridized system is thick with job redundancies because bringing
new expatriates up to speed can take about six months.

Sources within the Saudi Aramco expatriate community indicate
that if they were to depart, production would not suffer in the
short term. Instead, Saudi Aramco's operational efficiency would
plummet, recovery rates would drop and it would become very
difficult to add new fields to its roster of productive assets.

As one energy expert affiliated with another state oil firm in
the developing world put it: Think of the expatriates as the
architects at a construction site. They do not do all the work by
any stretch of the imagination, but should they leave, the
remaining construction workers lack the vision and expertise to
care the project to fruition.

The expatriates employed by or affiliated with Saudi Aramco are
not skittish people by nature. They live and work in a country
whose state religion defines them as the worst sort of infidels.
A large proportion of them are veterans of the days of Desert
Storm, which saw Iraqi missiles landing in and around cities with
high expatriate populations.

The reason is not so much bravery, as benefits. Most expats work
in Saudi Arabia for the money (which is exceedingly good) and the
perks. Educational opportunities abound for the expatriates and
their dependents, the living is lavish and being surrounded by an
exotic culture provides an extra thrill.

These things are not all that attractive if someone is trying to
kill you.

Al-Muqrin's Crusade

Al Qaeda's local military commander, Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, has
decided to target the expatriates. He has selected his target
well.

First, al-Muqrin's choice is logistical -- and based on more than
the simple fact that the network of fields, pipelines, refineries
and ports that comprise the Saudi energy industry are heavily
guarded. The compounds that the expatriates live and work in are
just as easy to locate as the country's oil assets -- and easier
to access. The compounds are nearly always in populated areas;
most of the oil fields are deep in the deserts of the Arabian
Peninsula. Both the oil infrastructure and the expatriate
compounds are stationary, but the residential compounds are
easier to study without detection in anticipation of an attack.

Second, al-Muqrin is well aware of the average Saudi's attachment
to the country's oil.

Attacking oil assets also attacks the Saudi gravy train -- oil is
the source of more than 90 percent of Saudi Arabia's export
revenues -- which would elicit a far stronger reaction from the
ruling House of Saud and the general population than attacks on
resident "infidels." Saudi sentiment embraces the oil complex as
the property of the people, not simply the House of Saud's
feeding trough. Attacking energy assets would threaten to dull al
Qaeda's reputation locally, just as the Nov. 9, 2003, as did the
attack against Riyadh's al-Muhaya residential compound. That
attack targeted predominately Arab Muslims who happened to work
with Western expatriates, and not the expatriates themselves.

In contrast, attacking expatriates appears to be broadly popular
with the Saudi population. Stratfor sources on both sides of the
issue within the kingdom indicate that there is little love lost
between the expatriates and the government, which has never made
great efforts to integrate the expatriates or make them feel
welcome or secure. There is even less of a connection between
Saudi citizens and the expatriates, who live and work in heavily
guarded compounds.

This separation is al-Muqrin's third rationale for targeting
expatriates.

Nearly all expatriates live in guarded, reinforced, walled
compounds, where they are exempt from the strict Wahhabi laws
that rule Saudi Arabia. Within the walls, alcohol can flow
freely, U.S. cable networks and the Internet are easily
accessible and women act as they do in the West. The Saudis, who
live in one of the world's most socially repressive states, know
-- and resent -- this.

Fourth, attacking expatriates instead of energy infrastructure is
advantageous because it leaves the infrastructure in place. One
of the end goals of al Qaeda is to resurrect the Islamic
caliphate. Osama bin Laden has often referred to Saudi oil as the
birthright of all Muslims; destroying that birthright is not high
on his agenda.

Fifth, Saudi security forces and internal intelligence are not
particularly competent when it comes to guarding expatriates.
Like the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, which remains
shot through with Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers despite
several purges, U.S. intelligence sources suspect the Saudi
intelligence service is most likely similarly compromised.

In the attacks in Khobar on May 29, the militants only took over
a small portion of the Oasis compound, but the Saudi forces did
not move in to protect the other expatriates. When the final
"rescue" raid occurred, the militants had already left, and three
of the four attackers subsequently were able to escape,
demonstrating at best an inability -- or at worst, refusal -- of
the security forces to act with the expatriates' safety in mind.

In subsequent statements, al-Muqrin has said explicitly that his
groups have received direct cooperation from Saudi security
services. Although the veracity and depth of such connections is
up for discussion and is the subject of ongoing Stratfor
investigations, the immediate point is that al-Muqrin is
advertising the possibility of such cooperation. This will
contribute to the climate of fear, encourage independent anti-
expatriate actions among the Saudis and place enormous pressure
on expatriates to quit the kingdom.

Finally, security at the expatriate compounds is both
insufficient and degrading. The first to leave the country in the
aftermath of the May 1 attacks in Yanbu were dependents and
foreign security personnel assigned to guard the compounds. Such
security guards were -- by dint of Saudi policy -- not allowed to
carry weapons. Stratfor sources living within the compounds
indicate that after attacks on the compounds began, the security
guards simply left the country.

Sources within U.S. intelligence and the expatriate communities
indicate that Riyadh has recruited locals -- mostly from the
Saudi National Guard -- to pick up the slack. Many of these
replacement security personnel are both ideologically sympathetic
to the militants and stationed far from home. The result can be
unmotivated -- or worse -- security at the most sensitive sites.
This has placed a rather anti-expatriate force in a position to
"guard the infidels," as one Saudi Aramco source succinctly said.
Their morale appears low and the amount of effort they put into
securing access to expatriate compounds is minimal, according to
sources living inside the compounds.

The bottom line is: Despite the drastic change in circumstances
since the May 1 Yanbu attack, and particularly since the May 29
Khobar attack, expatriate security is far weaker than it was and
is steadily getting worse.

This does not mean that Islamic militants will not attack fixed
oil assets or that attacks will be limited to expatriates. Far
from it. U.S. diplomatic personal, for example, are and will
remain viable targets in the eyes of militants.

What it does mean is that the bulk of al Qaeda's -- and likely
al-Muqrin's -- efforts will be focused on the people who make
Saudi Aramco go -- the expatriates -- as opposed to Saudi Aramco
itself. Such operations pose lower operational and political risk
to the militants -- and offer the morale boost of cutting down
people they see as interlopers.

Al Qaeda is also all about leverage. It is not that the oil
assets are beyond their reach -- the Sept. 11 attacks proved
nothing is -- but instead that the oil assets are potentially a
future target. Attacks against expatriates are akin to slowly
turning the screws on both Washington and Riyadh, while attacking
the infrastructure directly is a sledgehammer blow that al Qaeda
can only use once.

[Mediocrates]

The primary threat to the facilities is not from al Qaeda, but
from affiliated and copycat groups. These groups might attempt to
take the fight to critical assets such as the trans-Arabian
Peninsula Petroline, which shuttles crude across the country, or
the tanker loading facilities at Yanbu, Ras al-Juaymah or Ras
Turana -- which collectively load all of Saudi Arabia's oil
exports.

The last two are of particular note. Ras Turana is the world's
largest offshore oil loading platform with a throughput capacity
of 5 million barrels per day. Both it and Ras al-Juaymah are in
the Shiite majority regions of Saudi Arabia. Many al Qaeda
sympathizers, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is active in
Iraq, have gone out of their way to attack locations of
importance to the Shia.

Such attacks are unlikely to be as coordinated, professional or
effective as al-Muqrin's crusade against the expatriates. Anti-
infrastructure attacks will wreak havoc in the short-term oil
markets even if they are unsuccessful. It is difficult to
underestimate the importance of Saudi oil to the world economy,
and even clumsy and botched attacks will have an impact.

Expat Exodus

Stopgap measures are failing. The expatriates tell us that they
are demanding -- and not receiving -- foreign security. Riyadh is
not allowing the import of armed security workers for two
reasons. First, the House of Saud is sensitive to the fact that
the Islamic world disapproves of the thousands of private
security contract workers operating in Iraq, and does not want to
be put in a position of introducing such forces into the kingdom.
Second, Riyadh fears running gun battles between the former Delta
Force members, Navy Seals, and MI6 agents -- the preferred
backgrounds for security guards -- and Saudi fundamentalists.
These developments would create a more hostile environment -- and
one which al-Muqrin could quite legitimately place at the feet of
the House of Saud.

Many expatriates have been trying to get the U.S. government to
pressure the Saudis to let foreign security into the country, but
since this would just put more Western targets in the kingdom,
the State Department is likely to try and let the matter drop.
Instead, at security briefings in the U.S. Embassy, government
officials are simply warning the expatriates that they "should
get the [expletive deleted] out of here."

After the May 1 Yanbu attack there was a general flood of
dependents out of the kingdom for safety reasons. Khobar took
things to a new level. Unlike Yanbu, where expatriates were
attacked at work, at Khobar they were attacked at home. The
combination of the Saudi non-response and the subsequent failure
to upgrade security has led many expatriates to the (correct)
conclusion that the Saudi security services are either incapable
or unwilling to protect them. It is not helping that the Saudi
state is also engaging in some rather shoddy information
suppression.

Sources within the expatriate community, and the local hospital
and morgue indicate that Khobar fatalities were far in excess of
the 22 reported. A source at the morgue reported receiving 50
fatalities in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Meanwhile,
the attacks continue -- but are largely kept out of the press --
with hostilities registered by our sources in cities such as
Dammam, Khobar, Qasim and Jubail.

The net result, according to an array of sources either within or
associated with Saudi Aramco, is that expatriates are beginning
to leave the kingdom. Some are relocating to more expatriate-
friendly locations such as Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates and then commuting to work via jetliner; but most are
simply leaving. Unlike the dependents or security personnel who
already have left, many of these new departures are career Saudi
Aramco officials with 15 or more years of experience in fields
such as exploration, finance, geology, law, training and project
management. Simply put, these are the people that make Saudi
Aramco go.

Saudi Aramco: Locked Into Decline

At this point there is no reason whatsoever to expect al-Muqrin
and others to change their tactics. With a handful of attacks,
al-Muqrin already has started a steady flow of expatriates from
Saudi Aramco -- without sparking a severe government crackdown or
a general rejection of the militants' ideology by the Saudi
people. Oil prices -- as al-Muqrin has proudly noted -- hit a
non-inflation-adjusted record of $42 a barrel. Al-Muqrin's four-
man teams have proven remarkably successful at achieving their
desired goals, and Saudi Aramco, the Saudi government and the
expatriates themselves seem helpless to turn the tide.

Perhaps the most dangerous implication of this for the oil
markets is that -- barring attacks against actual oil assets --
the immediate effect of an expatriate outflow will be minimal.
Remember that the Saudis are competent in managing the day-to-day
operations of the oil complex. The problem will come down the
line as fields reach maturity, accidents (common when the
operators lack high technical skills) occur and take months to
address and logistics weaken in general.

Like all oil producers, Saudi Aramco must continue to drill new
wells, bring new fields on line and engage in ever more
technically sophisticated recovery techniques to maintain steady
production. The expatriates' departure will not result in an
acute production shutdown, but instead in a slow steady
degradation in capability that will be measured in months and
years.

The recent Venezuelan experience is perhaps the best guide. In
the aftermath of the late 2002, early 2003 strike at Petroleos de
Venezuela (PDVSA), the government of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez fired nearly half of the firm's staff. Chavez's purge
resulted in huge holes in technical, managerial and
administrative capabilities that the company has since been
incapable of filling. Daily production and capacity have dropped
to 2.45 million bpd as of May 2004, from just more than 3 million
bpd before the strike, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration.

For Saudi Arabia, the result will be that swing production will
gradually disappear. Considering that Saudi Arabia is trying to
bring most of that swing production online, this is a process
that the world might well miss. The next time oil prices dip,
Riyadh's production reduction will likely be disguised as a
reduction in OPEC's official quotas. The world will not know what
Saudi Arabia's true maximum production levels are until the next
bout of high prices.

Life After Saudi Arabia

Stratfor sources associated with a number of oil firms and
finance houses indicate that there is approximately an $8
"terror" premium factored into the price of each barrel of oil.
Between that and the normal tightness in oil markets, there is no
reason to expect crude to drop below $30 a barrel before the end
of the Northern Hemisphere's summer, if then.

The core problem facing the oil markets is that Saudi Arabia's
ability to add new production -- even to replace falling
production at existing fields -- is severely in doubt. Saudi
Arabia's spare capacity is what has made it the center of the oil
world for the past generation.

The example of Venezuela is instructive in other ways. One factor
that helped mitigate the sharp drop in Venezuelan exports during
the PDVSA strike was the rapid increase in exports from OPEC,
particularly from Iraq and Saudi Arabia. These two countries,
along with Kuwait, were able to quickly respond to the Venezuela
crisis, while other OPEC producer countries were not, because
they already were pumping at full capacity.

Should Saudi Arabian production drop off, Venezuela is not in a
position to return the favor, nor can Iraq repeat its
performance, mired as it is in its own problems.

Beyond OPEC, most producers typically pump every drop of crude
they can, leaving no wiggle room. Russia is constrained by
limitations on its export infrastructure; Norway's capacity is
declining; ethnic unrest still plagues Nigeria's delta region;
Mexico's expansion is still constrained by politics. Simply put,
there is no one to step into the breach, should Saudi production
begin to slide off the map.

Without its spare capacity, Saudi Arabia will lack the ability to
act as OPEC's -- and the world's -- swing producer. Normally,
Riyadh tightens its taps when oil prices drop and loosens them as
prices rise. With a national debt in excess of the country's
gross domestic product and slowly degrading production levels,
Riyadh will have no choice but to pump every barrel it can.

Without swing production, the oil market will loose the cushion
that has kept prices relatively stable for the past 23 years,
with price spikes and plunges becoming far more common. No swing
production also means no OPEC for all practical purposes. After
all, if Saudi Arabia, the founder -- and de facto leader -- of
OPEC cannot cut its production from time to time, there will be
little incentive for others to sacrifice their own income.

Should the attacks on expatriates continue, as is extremely
likely, this state of affairs will come about. It is only a
question of time. The world cannot be sure of what Saudi Arabia's
maximum pumping capacity will be in the future until it is
tested, and tests will not come until the global economy
experiences an energy crunch akin to the winter of 1990-1991
(Desert Shield/Desert Storm), the summer of 2000 (the bursting of
the dot.com bubble), the winter of 2002-2003 (Venezuelan crisis),
spring of 2003 (the Iraq war), or the summer of 2004 (the current
economic boom). It will likely be at least a few years until the
world has a clear read on just how far Saudi Arabia can fall.

[Mediocrates]

As the world shifts into the post-OPEC era of volatile prices,
both companies and countries will be forced to stockpile
emergency supplies. This increase -- albeit temporary -- in
demand will disproportionately raise prices for all because there
will be no wiggle room on the supply side.

Of course, the combination of unreliable income and high debt
spells a murky future for the Saudi state itself. The Saudi
social contract is one that is built upon steady subsidization of
all walks of life. As Saudi production has decreased vis-a-vis
the total amount of global oil production -- Saudi production has
been roughly steady since 1980 -- that contract has frayed. While
Saudi production begins to decrease in absolute, as well as
relative, terms, the likelihood of social explosion looms large.



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NOTIFICATION OF COPYRIGHT

The Global Intelligence Report (GIR) is published by Strategic
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international copyright laws. The content in this GIR may be used
as a resource while accessing Stratfor website products or
consulting services, and may be freely redistributed to friends
and associates without prior permission. Individuals,
corporations, organizations or other commercial entities are not
authorized to distribute this GIR en masse without prior written
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from Stratfor, the reprinted content must be appropriately
credited and sourced with Stratfor's name and website
address. Individuals, corporations, organizations or other
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c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
As the world shifts into the post-OPEC era of volatile prices,
both companies and countries will be forced to stockpile
emergency supplies. This increase -- albeit temporary -- in
demand will disproportionately raise prices for all because there
will be no wiggle room on the supply side.

Of course, the combination of unreliable income and high debt
spells a murky future for the Saudi state itself. The Saudi
social contract is one that is built upon steady subsidization of
all walks of life. As Saudi production has decreased vis-a-vis
the total amount of global oil production -- Saudi production has
been roughly steady since 1980 -- that contract has frayed. While
Saudi production begins to decrease in absolute, as well as
relative, terms, the likelihood of social explosion looms large.



CONTACT INFORMATION:

Thanks, Meciocrates, that was a bloody good read...

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NOTIFICATION OF COPYRIGHT

The Global Intelligence Report (GIR) is published by Strategic
Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), and is protected by the United
States Copyright Act, all applicable state laws, and
international copyright laws. The content in this GIR may be used
as a resource while accessing Stratfor website products or
consulting services, and may be freely redistributed to friends
and associates without prior permission. Individuals,
corporations, organizations or other commercial entities are not
authorized to distribute this GIR en masse without prior written
permission before publication. Upon receiving written consent
from Stratfor, the reprinted content must be appropriately
credited and sourced with Stratfor's name and website
address. Individuals, corporations, organizations or other
commercial entities are not authorized to reproduce, retransmit,
or distribute with the intent to sell, publish, or broadcast for
purposes of profit without prior written consent of Stratfor. Any
other use is prohibited and will constitute an infringement upon
the proprietary rights of Stratfor.

c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved

[Mediocrates]

STRATFOR INTELLIGENCE BRIEF

Saudi Arabia: Al Qaeda's Many Layers

Summary

Al Qaeda ratcheted up the war in Saudi Arabia this week and is focusing on
terrorizing Western expatriate workers connected to the defense and energy
industries. The rising tension has focused attention on al Qaeda's public
face inside the kingdom: Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin. He is only one piece of a much
larger, multilayered structure involving thousands of al Qaeda members
deployed throughout the oil-rich kingdom.

Analysis

The war in Saudi Arabia has entered a new phase within the past few weeks,
with al Qaeda-linked militants zeroing in on lone Westerners in Riyadh -- an
unusual tactical maneuver. Stratfor has discussed the tactics used by the
militants in depth. Much of the media coverage has focused on one man, Abdel
Aziz al-Muqrin, as the leader of the movement. Al-Muqrin is known as the
public face of al Qaeda in the kingdom and as the military mastermind behind
attacks ranging from the May 1 raid against an energy company in Yanbu in
which several workers were killed, to the deadly attack and hostage incident
May 29 at a residential compound in Khobar.

Stratfor intelligence from sources inside the kingdom say al-Muqrin is not
the al Qaeda leader. Instead, he is a popular, charismatic military commander
in a highly complex jihadist network. The breadth and depth of al Qaeda's
presence in the kingdom is greater than is admitted by the Saudi government,
and understanding the structure of the organization helps explain not only
the recent deluge of attacks but also the strategic goals of al Qaeda.

The Face of Saudi Al Qaeda: al-Muqrin

Al-Muqrin has the street credibility and experience to lead the guerrilla
offensive inside the kingdom. He trained in Afghanistan and reportedly has
fought in Algeria, Bosnia and Somalia. He is in his 30s and is known to have
run a variety of combat and logistics operations in support of jihadist
movements, including running guns from Europe to North Africa. Known also as
Abu Hajar, al-Muqrin reportedly served prison time in the kingdom after being
picked up in Ethiopia and is well known to Saudi security forces. Saudi
authorities consider him one of the most wanted persons inside the kingdom,
and his notoriety might have contributed to al Qaeda's decision to allow him
to emerge as the face of al Qaeda.

But being the face of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia is not the same as being its
brain. Al-Muqrin is not the ultimate al Qaeda leader, but is the top military
commander. He is important but replaceable. Information obtained by Stratfor
from sources among Saudi Islamist circles indicates that al-Muqrin is but one
-- albeit charismatic -- face of a massive jihadist network.

Saudi al Qaeda: The Brain

Understanding the structure of the organization is critical for identifying
similarities in attacks throughout the nation. It also helps in forecasting
future developments in al Qaeda's offensive and the political, social and
military position of the ruling House of Saud and the potential for future
negotiations with the militants. Al Qaeda has a three-tiered structure in the
kingdom, which explains its ability to stage attacks in multiple locations
while rendering the appearance that the Saudi government is unable to thwart
the militant assaults.

The militants active inside the kingdom are part of a nationwide network
established over the past several years. The network is loosely structured,
with three clear layers and thousands of members. Few people know members
outside their own cell, and only a select few are involved in key decisions
at the highest levels.

At the top of the movement sits a committee that could be likened to the
executive board of a large corporation. The committee is responsible for
making command decisions, determining the type and extent of major attacks
and for target selection.

This leadership presides over the entire al Qaeda network within the kingdom.
The network consists of three concentric layers that are based on seniority,
training and experience. The committee is derived from the top layer of
members and is an elite group including religious scholars, tribal elders and
sheikhs, members of the merchant and business elite and sympathizers within
military, national guard, intelligence and other security forces -- what
could be called the "al Qaeda Core."

Tier One: The Saudi Core

This core group of members consisted originally of approximately 600 to 1,000
members. The group has shrunk to an estimated 300 members amid the U.S.-led
international militant dragnet. This group's members might know each other,
but do not necessarily know they all support the al Qaeda cause. Some of them
are known to Saudi intelligence and are in hiding; others lie dormant and
their affiliation with al Qaeda is undetected. A third set of members is too
powerful or too well connected for the Saudi government to directly challenge
them.

Tier Two: Pre-Sept. 11 Jihadists

The most visibly active layer consists of al Qaeda members who are veterans
of the al Qaeda/Taliban presence in Afghanistan. Most of them have personally
pledged allegiance (bayah) to Osama bin Laden. They are well trained and
sophisticated in tactical combat operations.

Known to intelligence services in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and
possibly Iran and Yemen, they remain in hiding until deployment for specific
operations. These men constitute the military hierarchy of the movement in
the kingdom. They also are believed to be serving as advisers and providing
logistical and other support.

Tier two also has its own second, middle layer. This group has the most
members -- an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 operatives, 80 percent of them in the
kingdom. Most of the remaining members are in the Arabian Peninsula, with
others in places such as Algeria and Egypt. The second layer does not have a
formal oath of commitment to bin Laden, but members adhere to the al Qaeda
methodology and support is goals.

Most operatives have had combat experience in Central Asia, the Caucasus and
the Balkans. Al-Muqrin seems to be part of this second layer of militants who
received training in Afghanistan up until the U.S. invasion following the
Sept. 11 attacks. The major attacks such as those in Riyadh, Yanbu and Khobar
since May 2003 are likely the disciplined work of this second layer.

Tier Three: New Recruits

A third group has only recently formed. Again loosely tied into the network,
this group represents mostly new recruits who have joined the movement since
Sept. 11 and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The recruits are thought to number in the thousands, their numbers swelled by
the growing level of anti-Americanism in the kingdom and the region since the
beginning of the U.S.-led war against militant Islamism. This group is
comprised of a variety of people, including potentially thousands of madrassa
(religious school) students and hundreds of lower level and younger ulema,
who once worked for the government but were purged within the past few years
for being sympathetic to bin Laden's cause.

According to Stratfor sources, members of this group are thought to be
involved in the recent spate of individual shootings of Westerners. Some of
them could have seen combat in Iraq and are still in the early stages of
their military training.

Stratfor intelligence indicates that training camps have been established and
are being run inside the kingdom, and that this third set of militants is
training in them. At least three or four of the camps have been located and
dismantled by Saudi security forces. But locating other small militant bases
in the mountainous southwestern region or the valleys in the northwest is a
difficult task for Saudi Arabia's inexperienced and ill-trained security
forces. Sympathetic support from tribal groups and members of caravans might
also allow the militants to learn of impending security raids days in
advance.

[Mediocrates]

The Whole and Its Parts

The layers of the organization inside Saudi Arabia interact via a complex set
of relations, which is a function of the organizational evolution of al Qaeda
prime itself. Al Qaeda never saw itself as an organization in the classical
sense. Instead, it functions more as a university, offering military
instruction to its attendees. During its peak years in Afghanistan, al Qaeda
is believed to have trained and turned loose at least 40,000 militants,
according to Saudi and Pakistani government sources.

Stratfor sources say that between the launching of the World Front for Jihad
Against Jews and Crusaders movement in 1998 and the Sept. 11 attacks,
approximately 11,000 of those operatives returned to the kingdom from
Afghanistan in preparation for the current offensive. Their goals fit neatly
with al Qaeda's short- and long-term goals. Al Qaeda knows it cannot control
jihadist activity everywhere; therefore it always has extended great autonomy
to regional and local structures and has delegated responsibility. Some
conflicts might arise, but the overall goals of weakening existing regimes
through locally based and locally supported militancy only support al Qaeda's
efforts to destroy government opposition to its influence in the Middle East.

There are approximately 24 million people in Saudi Arabia, one-fifth of whom
are foreign workers. The country is approximately one-fifth the size of the
United States. The trained militants are indiscernible from the rest of the
native population, and their numbers allow them to conduct operations
throughout the kingdom. Moreover, there are sympathizers among the
non-militant population who support bin Laden and al Qaeda's goals, at least
in spirit.

Conclusion: A Natural Environment for Jihad

What is happening in Saudi Arabia has been a long time in the making. Al
Qaeda and its sympathizers inside the kingdom have been building a loose
network of supporters and affiliates for years. It is tapping into the
intense anti-American sentiment stirred by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
-- and the anti-Saudi rhetoric in the U.S. media.

The naturally religious nature of the Saudi society -- and its tendencies
toward secrecy and close familial relations and tribal alliances --
facilitate al Qaeda's efforts and frustrate efforts to respond. In the coming
months, the movement will only intensify its activities as more members shift
to active mode, even when taking action is nothing more taxing than taking
opportunistic potshots at Westerners driving their SUVs home from work.

The depth and breadth of the militant movement makes predicting attacks with
any precision difficult, if not impossible. Since the layers are divided, and
within each layer there are dozens of cells, any one of them could plan and
carry out an attack, while others are either lying dormant or plotting their
own strikes.

(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com



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[RichardP]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
The Whole and Its Parts

The layers of the organization inside Saudi Arabia interact via a complex set
of relations, which is a function of the organizational evolution of al Qaeda
prime itself. Al Qaeda never saw itself as an organization in the classical
sense. Instead, it functions more as a university, offering military
instruction to its attendees. During its peak years in Afghanistan, al Qaeda
is believed to have trained and turned loose at least 40,000 militants,
according to Saudi and Pakistani government sources.

Stratfor sources say that between the launching of the World Front for Jihad
Against Jews and Crusaders movement in 1998 and the Sept. 11 attacks,
approximately 11,000 of those operatives returned to the kingdom from
Afghanistan in preparation for the current offensive. Their goals fit neatly
with al Qaeda's short- and long-term goals. Al Qaeda knows it cannot control
jihadist activity everywhere; therefore it always has extended great autonomy
to regional and local structures and has delegated responsibility. Some
conflicts might arise, but the overall goals of weakening existing regimes
through locally based and locally supported militancy only support al Qaeda's
efforts to destroy government opposition to its influence in the Middle East.

There are approximately 24 million people in Saudi Arabia, one-fifth of whom
are foreign workers. The country is approximately one-fifth the size of the
United States. The trained militants are indiscernible from the rest of the
native population, and their numbers allow them to conduct operations
throughout the kingdom. Moreover, there are sympathizers among the
non-militant population who support bin Laden and al Qaeda's goals, at least
in spirit.

Conclusion: A Natural Environment for Jihad

What is happening in Saudi Arabia has been a long time in the making. Al
Qaeda and its sympathizers inside the kingdom have been building a loose
network of supporters and affiliates for years. It is tapping into the
intense anti-American sentiment stirred by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
-- and the anti-Saudi rhetoric in the U.S. media.

The naturally religious nature of the Saudi society -- and its tendencies
toward secrecy and close familial relations and tribal alliances --
facilitate al Qaeda's efforts and frustrate efforts to respond. In the coming
months, the movement will only intensify its activities as more members shift
to active mode, even when taking action is nothing more taxing than taking
opportunistic potshots at Westerners driving their SUVs home from work.

The depth and breadth of the militant movement makes predicting attacks with
any precision difficult, if not impossible. Since the layers are divided, and
within each layer there are dozens of cells, any one of them could plan and
carry out an attack, while others are either lying dormant or plotting their
own strikes.

(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com



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I was re-reading this thread, Mediocrates, as ‘me’ mind is a tad wonky, as of late… nothing new there. I have to reiterate, this is the best thread on the Saudi-Al Qaeda factor. We can see it happening before our eyes; nevertheless, there remain so many with their heads buried deep in their you-knows. Thanks for providing this for us, it's appreciated once again.

[Mediocrates]

You're welcome. What's scary is that it's fairly obvious to the people who are supposed to know this stuff.

[Mediocrates]

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
18 June 2004

Saudi Arabia: Al Qaeda's Strategic Goals

By James Eldridge

Summary

Al Qaeda has launched a multiphase war in Saudi Arabia. The militant group
has mid-term operational goals and long-term strategic goals, with an endgame
focused on ultimate control over one of the world's top oil producers.

Analysis

Stratfor accurately predicted in October 2002 that a war in Saudi Arabia
would erupt between al Qaeda and the ruling House of Saud. That war is under
way. Al Qaeda's tactics have become all too clear, with killings and
kidnappings of Westerners having become a common event.

Al Qaeda's strategic goals are, however, more obscure. Saudi Arabia is the
golden egg. Economically, politically, religiously and socially, it is a
perfect fit for al Qaeda's orientation and ambitions. The kingdom is rich
beyond belief -- capable of influencing global oil supplies and, by
extension, global politics; it is religiously and socially Wahhabi, fiercely
and independently tribal. It is the spiritual heartland of al Qaeda itself.

Al Qaeda's endgame is simple: complete control of the oil-rich kingdom. It
hopes to establish a transnational empire. At the heart of this pan-Islamic
Ummah (nation) would be Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's two holiest cities,
Mecca and Medina, and the world's top oil exporter. This pan-Islamic state --
with the Arabian Peninsula as the seat of sovereign authority -- would serve
as both the political and the religious leader of the Islamic world.

Based in what is now called Saudi Arabia and with the ability to influence
global energy supplies, al Qaeda would have the tools to shape the political
and security environments of dozens of other states. It would also have a
sanctuary where it could establish and train conventional armed forces while
maintaining its cadres of militants.

The United States would never permit an al Qaeda government to come to power
in the kingdom. The militant leadership knows this and is not likely to put
forward its own government -- at least not directly. Instead, it will look to
position leaders among the kingdom's tribal sheikhs, business elite and
senior military officers -- as well as some members of the ruling House of
Saud -- who are sympathetic to al Qaeda's worldview and willing to support al
Qaeda's long-term goal.

The Fight for Legitimacy

To achieve this end, al Qaeda must first weaken its opponents in the
government. There are several shorter-term goals for undercutting the House
of Saud.

* Severing the link between the United States and the House of Saud.

* Undermining the House of Saud's political authority.

* Destroying the royal family's religious credentials.

Severing the link with Washington will restrict the Saudi government's
foreign policy options, reducing its ability to resist outside interference
from nations like Israel or Iran, as well as nonstate actors. When Washington
loses confidence in the Saudi government, it will ratchet up its already
intense pressure on Riyadh to cooperate in the war against terrorism. The
hundreds of concessions and special privileges Saudis enjoy in the United
States would come to a grinding halt.

A loss of Saudi political prerogatives -- both at home and abroad -- would be
a humiliating loss of face for the royal tribe and would resonate throughout
the kingdom, in turn reducing Saudi citizens' confidence in and support for
the royal family. Loss of confidence in the royal family's ability and right
to rule directly challenges its legitimacy. Al Qaeda has openly criticized
the regime's political and religious credentials, labeling it corrupt and
hypocritical.

There is an emerging concern about the royal family's ability to rule. The
current political turmoil, fueled by the constant attacks on Westerners and
bombings of residential compounds, raises fears of political chaos. Islamic
political thought traditionally emphasizes that a bad ruler is preferable to
fitna (political chaos). Al Qaeda is now perhaps hoping to create just enough
political chaos to show that a bad ruler cannot prevent fitna.

A second attack on the regime's credentials centers around its religious
legitimacy. Osama bin Laden enjoys broad support inside the kingdom,
especially among the deeply pious. Many of his followers are thought to be
from Qassim, the base of many prominent Wahhabi clerics. The country's most
senior religious leader, Grand Mufti Abdel Aziz Al Al-Sheikh, recently was
forced to defend religious rulings against accusations of excessive political
influence from the government.

Being accused of allowing political matters to have influence over religious
matters is a damning charge. Most Islamic political thought -- including
Wahhabi thought -- argues that politics is and should be subservient to
religion. In fact, most Islamic political thought makes no distinction
between political and religious rule.

The Wahhabis take this position to a radical level, seeing politics as the
rightful domain of the religious leadership and other pious elites. By
challenging the credibility of the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia,
the opposition challenges the legitimacy not only of the government but also
the senior religious leadership.

Money, Money, Money

Al Qaeda control of the kingdom does not necessarily mean either the
overthrow of the House of Saud -- at least at this stage -- or the more
immediate destruction of the country's oil infrastructure or disruption of
oil exports. The kingdom is infinitely more valuable with its oil sector
intact. Al Qaeda will concentrate on weakening the regime and driving
Westerners from the Arabian Peninsula for the foreseeable future.

Al Qaeda does not want to trigger a U.S. invasion or any other serious
political backlash like a full-scale revolution or a fracturing of the
country that would restrict Riyadh's political reach. If it can find a
cooperative branch or a support base within the royal family, then the
"regime" could persist -- at least in name -- even as Riyadh's political
orientation shifts.

There could be short-term reasons for not completely displacing the House of
Saud. The most immediate is money. Al Qaeda has long relied on financing from
the kingdom. There are persistent rumors that some members of the royal
family back the militants financially and politically. The U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency reports that al Qaeda has spent around $30 million
annually to finance operations. The U.S. commission looking into the events
of Sept. 11 concluded that most of those funds came from "witting and
unwitting donors, primarily in Persian Gulf countries, especially Saudi
Arabia." Some of the money is believed to have passed through charities.

The Saudi government claims it is going after the charities as a way of
cutting off the financing. It has assumed control over the Al-Haramain
Foundation, a Saudi-based international charity that the U.S. government has
linked to al Qaeda. Significantly, no key personnel, including the charity's
founder and chairman Aqeel al-Aqeel, have been arrested.

Al Qaeda needs to keep the money flowing, and that means not endangering
either its allies in the kingdom or the primary sources of revenue -- like
oil exports. If the regime moves aggressively to shut down its sources of
financing, al Qaeda's calculus could change. It could accelerate the timing
for targeting the regime directly. But at this stage, one charity less will
not prevent al Qaeda's operations inside or beyond Saudi Arabia.

The Oil Weapon

The current phase of the war in Saudi Arabia is focused on getting Westerners
out of the kingdom. The withdrawal of the foreigners accomplishes the goal of
weakening U.S.-Saudi ties and leaving the energy industry fully in Saudi
hands. Driving the Western infidels out of the kingdom would also serve as a
powerful recruiting tool for al Qaeda.

Ousting Westerners also opens thousands of positions in the energy and
defense industries, positions al Qaeda will hope to see filled with Saudis or
other Muslims sympathetic to its worldview. Taking control of the energy
industry would give al Qaeda global leverage. Running the energy industry
without the Western brain trust would be a challenge and could lead to a
serious decline in Saudi output capacity. But with the resources available to
Aramco and other Saudi energy firms, a smaller but steady output still would
give al Qaeda enormous political leverage abroad.

It is not in al Qaeda's interest at this phase in the war to strike at the
Saudi oil infrastructure. Doing so would endanger a key source of its
financing, would be highly unpopular with the Saudi people -- who view the
oil as their God-given inheritance -- and would not further the movement's
military objectives.

[Mediocrates]

The Second Ikhwan Uprising

The next phase of the war is less certain, although it might imitate the last
great rebellion in the kingdom.

In 1902, Abdel-Aziz bin Abdel-Rahman bin Faisal al-Saud, the founder of
modern-day Saudi Arabia, returned from exile in Kuwait and seized Riyadh and
much of the surrounding central Najd territory. Al-Saud -- who is better
known as Ibn Saud -- cobbled together an army known as the Ikhwan from
several of Arabia's nomadic and seminomadic tribes (bedouin) to conquer Hail,
the Hijaz and other parts of what now makes up the kingdom. By 1913 his
forces had taken the oil-rich al-Ahsa or Eastern Province. In 1917, with the
help of the Ikhwan bedouins, Ibn Saud inched his way toward Hail, the
headquarters of the rival al Rashid tribe in northern Arabia, eventually
capturing it.

By 1926, he had ousted the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein Ibn Ali, and taken the
Arabian Peninsula's western flank, known as the Hijaz. Ibn Saud's territorial
ambitions were halted soon thereafter. Britain had placed sons of the Sharif
on the thrones in Iraq and Transjordan, and cut a deal with Riyadh to limit
raids into these territories.

After the territorial expansion reached its limits, Ibn Saud moved to disband
the Ikhwan army and settle the bedouin. The bedouin, however, expected
massive booty from the Hijaz and Hail victories and wanted to keep raiding
into Iraq rather than settle down.

Two of the Ikhwan leaders -- who had expected but did not receive cushy
government appointments -- turned on Ibn Saud and began challenging Riyadh.
Ibn Bijad, the top Ikhwan leader, had expected to be appointed military chief
after the kingdom's consolidation, but he was dismissed instead. It is
thought that Ibn Saud feared Bijad, and Faisal al Duwish, the Ikhwan's other
commander, posed a threat. In 1929, the Ikhwan rose in unsuccessful rebellion
against the regime.

There are a number of parallels between the current al Qaeda offensive and
the 1929 Ikhwan rebellion.

Like Ibn Bijad, Osama bin Laden thought he would be rewarded with a
high-ranking military position upon his return from Afghanistan after the
defeat of the Soviets. Instead, he was ignored and then denied permission to
form an army to fight against an invasion after Saddam Hussein's forces took
Kuwait in August 1990.

The Ikhwan accused Ibn Saud of dealing with the infidels, referring to
Riyadh's relationship with Britain. Al Qaeda has condemned the Saudi
government for dealing with the infidels, Americans and Westerners in
general.

A critical divergence, however, is in targeting. Although the idea of a Saudi
nationality did not exist back then, the underlying tribal alliance system
prevailed and the Ikhwan deliberately attacked tribes loyal to Ibn Saud.

Conclusion: The Second Phase

Al Qaeda has not taken this road -- at least not yet. But after cleansing the
holy lands of infidels, the movement will have thousands of radical and eager
militants expecting action. Al Qaeda also has repeatedly and blatantly
accused the Saudi regime of corruption and hypocrisy and is not likely simply
to close up shop just because all the Americans have been routed. In fact,
the militants have already struck at Saudi intelligence officials and
headquarters.

The war is a guerrilla conflict with militant attacks focused on Westerners.
The next phase, however, will see a shift. The militants will reorient the
conflict to directly targeting Saudi authorities. They will also move to
establish themselves as a legitimate and viable political alternative.

Al Qaeda is also laying the foundation for a new regime. In a taped speech
that was aired in January 2004, a speaker -- believed to be bin Laden --
calls for the establishment of a legitimate and righteous political
leadership to replace the corrupt Arab governments now in power. He says:
"The honest people who are concerned about this situation, such as the ulema,
leaders who are obeyed among their people, dignitaries, notables and
merchants should get together and meet in a safe place away from the shadow
of these suppressive regimes and form a council for Ahl al-Hall wa al-Aqd
[literally 'those who loose and bind,' a reference to honest, wise and
righteous people who can appoint or remove a ruler in Islamic tradition] to
fill the vacuum caused by the religious invalidation of these regimes and
their mental deficiency." The implication is pointed: Riyadh is corrupt and a
new leadership must arise to replace it.

Stratfor sources inside the kingdom all agree: The anti-Western guerrilla war
is only the initial phase. The countdown to a confrontation between the
mujahideen and the Saudi government is certain. It is only a matter of time.

(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.stratfor.com


NOTIFICATION OF COPYRIGHT

The Stratfor Weekly (SW) is published by Strategic
Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), and is protected by the United
States Copyright Act, all applicable state laws, and
international copyright laws. The content in this GIR may be used
as a resource while accessing Stratfor website products or
consulting services, and may be freely redistributed to friends
and associates without prior permission. Individuals,
corporations, organizations or other commercial entities are not
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from Stratfor, the reprinted content must be appropriately
credited and sourced with Stratfor's name and website
address. Individuals, corporations, organizations or other
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or distribute with the intent to sell, publish, or broadcast for
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other use is prohibited and will constitute an infringement upon
the proprietary rights of Stratfor.

[Mediocrates]

http://arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=46971&d=18&m=6&y=2004

Some Lessons From Nations That Won the War On Terror
Amir Taheri, Arab News

PARIS, 18 June 2004 — At the Observatory of Human Rights in Algiers, the Algerian capital, a visitor is shown a chart indicating the course of almost a decade of terrorist war waged in the name of Islam.

The chart does not give the number of victims. Different sets of figures have circulated for years. In 1994 the Interior Ministry cited a figure of 11,000. In 1996, Socialist opposition leader Hocine Ait-Ahmed estimated the number of those killed at almost half a million. In 1999, Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika, then a presidential candidate, put the number at “over 100,000”. My estimate, based on information collected from many sources since 1994, produces a figure of around 28,000. But we still need years of painstaking research to establish the full facts.

There is more accurate information about the numbers and the frequency of terror attacks. The chart mentioned above shows that terror attacks reached their peak between 1994 and 1996. At some point, in 1995, the various terror groups were able to launch up to 30 more or less simultaneous attacks each day. In some cases, the terrorists killed hundreds of people in a day, the record being reached with the massacre of an estimated 500 people in the village of Ben-Talha.

In March 1994 during a visit to Algiers it was hard to avoid the impression that the Algerian state was on the verge of collapse and that the terrorists would soon ride into the capital to seize power. The nation had suffered human and physical losses on the scale of a conventional war. The damage done to its economic and administrative infrastructure by the terrorists ran into billions of dollars. Thousands of municipal buildings, schools, clinics, libraries and private homes had been destroyed. Dozens of villages had been turned into desert, their inhabitants driven out or massacred.

By 1996, however, the tide had begun to turn against the terrorists and within a year it was clear that Algeria was no longer in mortal danger. By 1999 Algeria had won its war against terrorism.

A similar story could be told of Peru, the Latin American nation most affected by terrorist war.

At one point, the main terrorist organization known as Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path) was capable of striking anywhere and anytime it wished. Over almost two decades, the terrorist war claimed the lives of at least 30,000 people, mostly civilians. By seizing control of a good chunk of the illicit narcotics trade, the terrorist groups had access to an almost endless source of cash to finance their campaign.

And, yet, by 1999 Peru, too, seemed to be emerging from its ordeal. With Sendero Luminoso flushed out of its safe havens and its leadership in the can, the Peruvian state was able to reassert its authority even in the deepest jungles of the hinterland.

Algeria and Peru are not the only nations to have faced and defeated modern terrorism. Egypt and Turkey have had similar experiences with exceptionally brutal terrorist movements.

Today no fewer than 22 countries are affected by terrorism of one form or another. In some, like India, the Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar, the state has succeeded in containing the terrorist threat without fully defeating it. In others, like Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism has transformed into low— intensity warfare that could continue for years.

Elsewhere, as in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast and Uganda terror groups have organized themselves into mini-armies that control large chunks of territory and threaten the central state.

But all these experiences reveal one important fact: No terrorist movement in the past two decades has succeeded in overthrowing the state and seizing power for itself. This is in contrast with the experience of the previous decades that saw several terrorist movements, often disguised as revolutionary guerrilla movements, come to power on a wave of violence.

How did Algeria, Peru and other nations that have defeated terrorism managed to do so in the face of heavy odds?

The question is of interest to the latest victims of terrorism, including Saudi Arabia.

While Algerian, Peruvian and other experiences in fighting terrorism show important differences, they all have several key features in common.

The first of these is a psychological determination on the part of the ruling elites to stay the course. One central aim of the terrorist, of course, is to instill fear in society in general and the elite in particular. By refusing to be frightened, society and its leaders achieve their first victory against the terrorists.

This, of course, is easier said than done. In Algeria, for example, the terrorists launched a campaign of murdering university teachers and students, especially girls. Scores were killed, mostly by having their throats slit. The immediate effect was dramatic. More than half of the students of the Algiers University stayed away for weeks and months. By 1995, however, the authorities had provided enough security to persuade the students, and their teachers, to return. This was still an act of daily courage on the part of tens of thousands of young people who were prepared to risk their lives but not to allow terrorists to close the universities.

In both Peru and Algeria the authorities started by grouping key personalities of the system in fortified neighborhoods so as to protect them against assassination attempts. But they soon realized that this made the task of the terrorists easier. The terrorists, using a few people for surveillance, could chart the movements of all the key people to and from a small area. This gave them fixed targets while they themselves enjoyed maximum mobility.

The terrorists achieved spectacular successes by killing many top people. Dozens of ministers, governors, mayors, trade union leaders, political party personalities, prominent media men and women were murdered in Peru and Algeria. In Algeria they even assassinated the head of state.

Later, both countries decided to spread their key personnel widely, beyond the terrorists’ capacity to organize surveillance operations leading to assassinations.

The second lesson to learn is to understand the difference in the rhythm and tempo of the terrorist organization and the state security forces. The terrorist is almost always capable of running the 100-meter course faster than his state adversaries. He aims at achieving big victories quickly and with a few spectacular operations. The state security forces, on the other hand, must be prepared to draw the terrorist into a marathon course. They need to slow things down as much as possible and to make sure that even the most spectacular attacks fail to produce the results desired by the terrorists.

The third lesson to learn is the strategy of forcing the terrorists into fixed positions before moving against them. The terrorist constantly seeks anonymity, like fish in water.

But he also needs safe havens, hospitals, recreation centers, places to hide his bigger weapons, and facilities to train new recruits or imprison potential defectors. All this means a loss of mobility which is the terrorist’s key advantage over the state.

In both Algeria and Peru, and to some extent even in Turkey and Egypt, the state decided to actually help the terrorists become fixed targets. In Algeria, for example, the anti-terror units deliberately stayed out of some areas, notably the Mitidja plain and the town of Blida, thus shooing the terrorists there. On some occasions the security forces even refused to intervene to stop terrorist operations that took place under their noses, so to speak. The idea was to convince the terrorists that they had a safe haven. In time this meant that the terrorists became fixed targets while the security forces enjoyed the advantage of mobility and the choice of the time to attack.

The fourth lesson is known to counterterrorism experts as “the onion principle.” This means treating the terrorist organizations as bodies constituted by numerous layers. The classical counterterrorist method is to look for the core of the “onion” in the hope of eliminating it. But in both Peru and Algeria, it soon became clear that it was more efficient to deal with the outer layers first.

These outer layers provide finance, information, surveillance, espionage and a variety of logistical support for the core groups. Thus disrupting or destroying them would have a direct impact on the efficiency of the core groups.

Dealing with the outer layer is also important because they offer opportunities for misinformation campaigns and, more importantly, infiltration. This method was most successfully used in Egypt where the authorities managed to infiltrate virtually all terror groups, at times right to the highest levels of their leadership.


(To be continued)

[Mediocrates]

http://csis.org/features/lessons_coldwar.pdf

Lessons of Post Cold War Conflict: Middle Eastern Lessons
and Perspectives

Working Paper for the NIC Global Trends 2020 Project
on the Changing Nature of Warfare

This is a pretty useful summary paper what the title says it is. I disagree with Cordesman when he apparently ignores the root causes of why these conflicts exist today. He prefers to accept them as is and rather simplistically assign blame and risk-return to all parties involved. But on the whole it's a good summary.

[Mediocrates]

Terror and Democracy in the Middle East

A briefing by Michael Ledeen
May 20, 2004

http://www.meforum.org/article/611

Mr. Ledeen, an expert on U.S. foreign policy, is the Freedom Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin and his commentary regularly appears in the National Review, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. The author of fifteen books, his latest one, The War against the Terror Masters: How it Happened, Where We Are Now, How We'll Win (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002), explains the key priorities he sees for the United States. He addressed the Middle East Forum in New York on May 20, 2004.

Basics of Terrorism

The war on terror is far from a new phenomenon. In reality, this war has been an ongoing event for at least the past twenty-five years. The tragic events of September 11th, however, put an end to a one-sided war, fought by our enemies alone. Until then, terrorists were able to attack with confidence knowing that the response from their victims and victims' allies would be small or uncoordinated. President George W. Bush set a precedent following September 11th as he began to wage war on terror, as opposed to every president since Jimmy Carter who had merely declared war on terror.

Who Are We at War With?

Prior to the liberation of Iraq, there were four "terror masters" in the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, of which only two had Islamist governments: Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Syrian and Iraqi regimes secured and maintained their power precisely because they were the opposite of Islamists. Their strong secular backgrounds allowed them at various points in their existence to gain support from Western powers in the consolidation of power in the Middle East. It is wrong, therefore, to qualify all terror as simply radical Islam. Rather, if looking for a common theme among the "terror masters" one should identify tyranny threatened by U.S. democratic strength and success.

Why Do They Hate Us?

People in the Muslim world can be divided into the three categories devised by Bernard Lewis:

Oppressive regimes that are hostile towards the US, but whose people look to the US because they see it as their only hope for freeing themselves from those regimes;

Oppressive regimes that are formal US allies, in which the people despise the US because they hold it accountable for the preservation of those regimes; and

A small subset of Middle Eastern states in which both the government and the people are pro-American. This category, not surprisingly, includes the only two democracies in the Middle East: Turkey and Israel.

Finally, Saudi Arabia has the unique distinction of being both a friend and an enemy at the same time. While the Saudis assist the United States with bases, intelligence, and oil supplies, they also fund the "assembly line" of terrorists.

We failed to take steps earlier against our enemies and dubious friends because of the severe, long-standing Congressional restrictions on the activities of the CIA and FBI.

Democratizing the Middle East

The influence of Iran in the Middle East is enormous. Less Iranian interference in Iraq would be the best boon Iraq could receive in developing a new liberal society. Change in Iran is a crucial step towards democratization in the Middle East, and unlike Iraq, invasion is not required. Iran should have been dealt with before Iraq through bloodless revolution. An Iranian revolution must be lead by a strong figure currently residing within the country. Neither Washington nor the family of the shah can lead a popular uprising.
The leadership of Iran is passionately committed to its own survival. The dictators of Iran thoroughly doubt their own legitimacy, their paranoia is immense, and they expect to be driven out of power in a relatively short period of time. If instead of hankering after UN approval over Iraq, President Bush had worked with the Iranian people, the regime would have been gone in a few months. The Iranian people are very pro-American. It is in the best interests of the United States to support them and have them liberate themselves.

There was a 14-month gap between the Afghanistan campaign and Iraq. At the end of the Afghan war, all Middle Eastern tyrants believed their time had come; however, a few unfortunate events happened to delay the Iraqi invasion.

Saudi Arabia, through Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, unleashed the Saudi peace plan that specified that the U.S. could not invade Iraq until the Israel-Palestine conflict was solved. The Saudis presented this diversion out of fear that the Iraqi invasion would lead to the democratization of the Middle East.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the U.K. needed a U.N. resolution before it would become completely involved. The only U.N. precedent that could be used to justify invasion was Saddam's failure to live up to WMD requirements. Every intelligence agency in the world believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they probably did. These WMDs were most likely hidden somewhere within Iraq or transported to Iran and Syria.

The resulting delay was a serious blow to the cause for Iraq, as those opposed to the war, along with Iraqi supporters, were able to organize. In order to attempt to rectify these problems, the US will turn over power in Iraq to local leaders on June 30th. While power will technically be given to new Iraqi leadership at this time, the US will still play a major role and will not leave until requested to do so by the new government.

This summary account was written by Patrick J. Murphy, research assistant at the Middle East Forum.

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[RichardP]

Mediocrates, I want to thank you for sharing Stratfor Weekly, it’s appreciated. It peels away the layers of the multifaceted issues, so that even I can grasp it.

[Mediocrates]

es di nada~

[Mediocrates]

http://www.israelforum.com/board/showpost.php?p=105010&postcount=443