CIA head says bin Laden isolated, fighting to survive

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. intelligence agencies believe Osama bin Laden is isolated from al Qaeda and spending much of his energy merely surviving, the head of the CIA said on Thursday.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said hunting down bin Laden remains his agency's priority.

"He is putting a lot of energy into his own survival -- a lot of energy into his own security," Hayden said in a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

"In fact, he appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he nominally heads," he said.

In recent weeks, there have been several U.S. missile strikes by unmanned drones around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The United States maintains that Taliban and al Qaeda forces operate with relative impunity in tribal areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and use those areas as staging grounds to attack U.S. forces and their allies inside Afghanistan.

Hayden said al Qaeda has been hurt by a sustained fight with the United States and its allies, but remains a threat.

"Al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, but it remains a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced," Hayden said. "The war is far from over."

Regardless of whether bin Laden is actively helping lead the terrorist organization, the CIA believes capturing or killing him would be a huge blow to al Qaeda, according to Hayden.

"This is an organization that has never been through a change at the top," he said. "For 20 years, bin Laden has been the visionary, the inspiration or harmonizing force behind al Qaeda."
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Hayden said it remained to be seen whether bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, could maintain unity in the ranks without him.

"The truth is, we simply don't know what would happen if bin Laden is killed or captured. But I'm willing to bet that whatever happens, it would work in our favor," Hayden said.

Via CNN.


Comment:

I have already put down my thoughts on this matter here.

Arrests over Afghan civilian deaths

Afghan police have arrested three men alleged to have provided "wrong information"
which led to the deaths of scores of civilians in a US air raid.

More than 90 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the village of Azizabad in western Herat's Shindand district on August 22, according to the Afghan government.

Police began an investigation into the incident on September 4 after villagers said US-led forces in Afghanistan had been fed false information about the presence of Taliban members in Azizabad following a tribal dispute, the interior ministry said.

A statement said: "After examining all the police reports and direct claims made by people in the area, three suspects who are said to be key people in giving false information regarding the bombardment of Azizabad, have been arrested in a police operation."

The three were on a list of people provided to Hamid Karzai, the president, by the villagers. Karzai visited relatives of the victims earlier this month and pledged to punish those responsible.

Karzai has already sacked two senior army commanders over the incident.

Tribal dispute

Locals told Al Jazeera that the air raid hit a memorial service at a compound belonging to Reza Khan, a tribal leader who had been in dispute with Nader Tawakal, another local leader.

"We were holding a prayer ceremony when the bombs started to fall ... it was heavy bombardment. The whole village was on fire and about 90 were killed," Abdul Rasheed, the brother of one of the dead, said.

Villagers have denied that the gathering was a meeting of the Taliban, which has been fighting Afghan and international forces since being forced from power in 2001. They said that Khan, who died in the raid, was a businessman with security contracts at a nearby US base.

"Nader gave the US special forces wrong information," Gullah Ahmed, one villager, said.

"But instead of surrounding the village they just started bombing."

Nader was not among those arrested on Friday.

The US military maintains that between 30 and 35 Taliban fighters were killed, but has agreed to reopen the investigation after a mobile phone video emerged showing bodies of people said to have been killed in the attack.

It says the original investigation found that a senior Taliban commander was among the dead in the air raid, which was called in after Afghan army US-led ground forces came under intense fire.

Civilian casualties

One resident of Azizabad said that US forces raided his house after the bombing and demanded to be shown the bodies of the dead Taliban fighters.

"I said there were no Taliban here," he told Al Jazeera. "I saw their facial expressions when they realised that civilians had been killed."

More than 500 civilians have been killed during military operations by foreign and Afghan forces so far this year, according to the Afghan government and some aid groups.

Daoud Sultanzoy, an Afghan MP, said that such incidents were destroying people's faith in the Afghan government and international forces in the country.

"The weak Afghan government and weak leadership is trying to take advantage of this and trying to deflect attention from their own problems that are the root cause of these kind of things," he told Al Jazeera.

"Lack of co-ordination of our intelligence, lack of co-ordination of our security forces and lack of co-ordination of our leadership have led to these kind of problems ... if we are not careful we will cross a threshold and alienate the civilian population."

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

This is turning out to be quite the fiasco. I had initially not covered it because the differences between the numbers provided by the military and those provided by the locals had led me to believe that it was primarily, though not necessarily entirely, an attempt by Taliban sympathizers at propagandizing. It turns out, though, that the military's figures were based on an embedded FOX news reporter, who turned out to be, almost unbelievably, Oliver North.

Al Jazeera has suggested elsewhere that Bush is apparently ratcheting up efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan in hopes of capturing Osama bin Laden before his term expires. I hope to God that this is not true. Everything that Bush has ever tried to do has failed. If he attempts to, as an American commander put it, "kill [his] way to victory," we might as well just start paying bin Laden a pension right now.

The centrality of bin Laden

On News Hounds, I had said, "just as Hitler was Nazi Germany, so too is bin Laden al-Qaeda. So long as he is free, it is free; capture him, and it will be broken." Another poster expressed doubt that this was the case, and I composed a detailed response for him. Since I've been meaning to put together a post on this topic for quite some time, I am posting it here as well.

Osama bin Laden is the lynchpin that holds al-Qaeda together. Even before 9/11, al-Qaeda was very strongly focused on him; his lieutenants swore an oath of fealty to him personally, which is unheard of in other such organizations. After 9/11 seared his name into history, he became almost mythical. His immense prestige is what prompted other such organizations to join forces with him.

It is important to remember that al-Qaeda is organized in a very unusual way. It does have a very firm, hierarchical structure, but the nature of that structure is very different from that of, say, a military. In militaries, location in the hierarchy is based solely on authority; in al-Qaeda, it is based primarily — though not exclusively — on deference. In other words, the various components of al-Qaeda work together not because they have to, but because they want to. Now, this does not mean that you can just change your mind and go your own way — just ask Zarqawi — but such insubordination is usually not an issue. Furthermore, individual components are autonomous, and are thus not often called upon to show deference.

In the al-Qaeda of today, there is no question that the regional commanders defer to bin Laden. To suggest otherwise is just silly. Whether or not they would show the same deference to bin Laden's successor, though, especially if we had already gotten Zawahiri, is another matter entirely. It is entirely possible that al-Qaeda would break up into its component organizations, and even if it didn't, the inability of its new leader to gain such unquestioning authority would mean that the whole system would eventually break down. Even if it remained intact, though, it would lose most of its momentum.

Osama Comes Out of the Closet

MIR ALI, Pakistan (SNN) - In a surprise move, Osama bin Laden has announced that he and Ayman al-Zawahri plan to wed in one months time. "I am a gay Muslim," he announced in a newly released video, proudly displaying his engagement ring. "I want to show my support for my brothers and sisters in California. Stay strong!"

Seriously, though, you'd think that the folks at As-Sahab would know better than to use such an effeminate color scheme. I realize that this particular tape was intended primarily for an Arab audience, but they must have known that it would reach the West as well, and that it is difficult to terrorize somebody when your communiqués look like advertisements for Mattel's new Jihadi Barbie. They're usually a pretty professional outfit; I'm not sure what went wrong this time.

Regarding the message's actual content, the focus on Palestine is consistent with what appears to be a trend by al-Qaeda to portray itself as a more mainstream terrorist organization, dedicated to defending Muslims from their wicked oppressors, rather than as a bunch of frothing psychopaths out to destroy civilization. I doubt that this represents an actual change in priorities, but the Iraq debacle has forced al-Qaeda to accept that it has a major PR problem. It remains to be seen how effective this rebranding will be.

France to get military base in UAE

Nicolas Sarkozy has signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates for France to establish its first permanent military base in the Gulf. The agreement reached on Tuesday will make France one of the first Western countries other than the United States to have a permanent base in the region. The planned facility will be able to house up to 500 personnel. During his visit to Abu Dhabi, the latest stop on his tour of the Gulf, Sarkozy was also expected to conclude a deal with his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, on nuclear co-operation that could be worth up to $6 billion. France already has long-standing military co-operation accords with countries in the Gulf, including the Emirates and Qatar.

[More]

Comment:

Osama bin Laden must be apoplectic. He rails and rails away at the presence of foreign infidel Crusader-Zionist forces in the Arabian Peninsula, and not only are they still there, the evil unbelieving French kafirs, who had participated in most if not all of the original Crusades, are setting up shop. Poor Sammy.

Closer to home, my laptop is still in the shop, and is now expected to be there until the 23rd, which means I'll probably be getting it back sometime in July. Until then, my ability to post will remain very limited.

Bin Laden issues Iraq message

Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, has released a new audiotape calling on fighters in Iraq to unite and stand shoulder to shoulder. In the tape broadcast by Al Jazeera on Monday, a voice sounding like bin Laden admitted that mistakes had been made in Iraq and exhorted the fighters to rectify them.

"Some of you have been lax in one duty, which is to unite your ranks," bin Laden said. "Beware of division... The Muslim world is waiting for you to gather under one banner."

In the audio recording, entitled A Message to the People of Iraq, bin Laden called on tribal leaders and the leaders of armed groups to initiate an agreement between the different groups. "The interest of the Islamic nation surpasses that of a group," he said. "The strength of faith is in the strength of the bond between Muslims and not that of a tribe or that of nationalism."

"Mistakes"

Bin Laden said fighters in Iraq should admit "mistakes" and try to correct them in the interest of unity. The recording was aired as Iraq's government reported violence had dropped by 70 per cent since the end of June, following a series of US-led offensives.
Iraq's wing of al-Qaeda is one of the groups fighting US-led forces and the Baghdad government, but bin Laden's followers have angered other Sunni groups and tribes through their interpretations of Islam and indiscriminate killing of civilians. "The mujahidin are the children of this nation ... they do right things and wrong things," bin Laden said. "Those who are accused of violations of God's commandments should face trial," bin Laden said. In the recording, bin Laden mentioned battles in the province of Diyala, indicating that he made the remarks since the start of a US offensive there in June. He said he was addressing "mujahidin [holy warriors] in Iraq", Sunni Muslim groups fighting US-led forces. Last month, bin Laden issued three messages, including a video marking the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington in which about 3,000 people were killed. Bin Laden said in the video that the United States was vulnerable despite its power and insisted only conversion to Islam would end the conflict.

'Tension'

Phil Rees, who has written on al-Qaeda, told Al Jazeera: "I think there's always been a tension between the leadership [of al-Qaeda], wherever that is ... and elements such as, say, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "We know there were various communications condemning some of the sectarian attacks and feeling that al-Zarqawi was something of a loose cannon." He said the tape could be an attempt by bin Laden to re-establish control over Sunni fighters in Iraq. "Maybe its a sign that he is in charge and he is trying to rein in these people," he said. In recent months Sunni tribal groups have formed alliances and worked with US forces to confront al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

It had been my intention to wait a day or so for Al Jazeera to publish the full text of the message, but unfortunately it doesn't look like that's going to be happening any time soon. All they've released in English has been excerpts, and apparently even those haven't been released in Arabic.

Going by what's in this article, I'd say it's pretty clear that al-Qaeda's feeling the heat. While Osama is not, as was claimed by FOX News, "apologizing to the people of Iraq", he was definitely trying to salvage a very bad situation. He seems to have blamed everyone except al-Qaeda — individual "mujahedin", Crusaders who've infiltrated their ranks to make them look bad, the tribes, he even brings up the Jews at one point (though I'm not sure what the context is). The problem, though, is with al-Qaeda itself. Wherever it goes, whatever it does, people die. Its methods are terror, oppression, and the very disintegration of society, and any who oppose it are held to be apostates and dealt with accordingly. Osama has called for the Iraqis and the members of al-Qaeda to unite under the banner of Islam. He does not realize that this is impossible, for he has removed himself from the fold.

al-Qaida Says 2nd Bin Laden Video Coming

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Osama bin Laden will appear for the second time in a week in a new video to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, presenting the last will and testament of one of the suicide hijackers, al-Qaida announced Monday. Each year, al-Qaida has released videos of last statements by hijackers on the anniversary of the 2001 attacks, using the occasion to rally its sympathizers. But this year's releases underline how bin Laden is re-emerging to tout his leadership - whether symbolic or effective - of the jihad movement. While past anniversary videos featured old footage of bin Laden, the latest appears likely to include a newly made speech. [More]

Comment:

After having been pent up in the mountains for so long with nobody to talk to but the sheep and the goats, Osama evidently has a lot to say. Needless to say, this coming video will totally reframe the discussion about whether or not September 7th's was real, so the discussion of that issue, which I had hoped to post on today, will have to wait for tomorrow.

Full bin Laden video

Azzam al-Amriki

In my previous post, I speculated that Azzam al-Amriki may have written the bulk of Osama bin Laden's. Having read of his life, and having viewed his video messages, I am now fairly certain that that is the case. He is a highly disturbing individual, because he reminds me so much, in his mannerisms and speech, of those that I know, yet he has fallen into the clutches of the Apostasy. He is, as I had suspected, something of a disaffected Leftist; he was born to a pair of hippy goatherds living in seclusion in Southern California and grew up feeling and perceiving the emptiness that most of today's youth have either observed or experienced themselves. He first sought to express that emptiness through the Death Metal subculture, and later sought to fill it with religion. The religion he found, based on its true merits, was Islam, but through an unfortunate quirk of fate the mosque that he found had a strong extremist presence. He fell in with and was assimilated by these extremists, and was radicalized through them. Despite having spent many years in the Middle East, his old ties to the Grumpy Young Californian Liberal culture are still readily apparent — at one point in one of his tapes he refers to Bush as "Dubya" — and he is thus almost certainly the source of the familiar, though perverted, tone of the middle part of Osama's speech. He does seem to have laid it on pretty thick, though, in comparison with his other videos, which leads me to suspect that he may have been trying to reach out to the 71%.

An excellent article on him can be found here, and some of his videos can be found here and here (part one of six).

Bin Laden shows his face again

Osama bin Laden has finally ended his longest-ever communications silence, though not entirely on his terms. The half hour video, which was supposed to have been released on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, was somehow obtained by the SITE Institute, which released its pirated copy on September 7. A number of transcripts have been made available by assorted news organizations; the most legible is available here.

This is a somewhat peculiar video. While As-Sahab's make-up team seems to have done a fine job making bin Laden look as healthy and photogenic as possible,
whoever it was that put the speech together did considerably shoddier work. I have read from various sources speculation that Azzam al-Amriki influenced the content; while I am unfamiliar with Amriki's rantings, I am still inclined to agree, because much of the speech does not seem to have been put together by bin Laden, and indeed appears to have something of an American touch. Compare, for example, the following, from a 2006 audio tape:

As for us, we do not have anything to lose. The swimmer in the sea does not fear rain. You have occupied our land, defiled our honour, violated our dignity, shed our blood, ransacked our money, demolished our houses, rendered us homeless, and tampered with our security. We will treat you in the same way. You tried to deny us the decent life, but you cannot deny us a decent death. Refraining from performing jihad, which is sanctioned by our religion, is an appalling sin. The best way of death for us is under the shadows of swords. Do not be deluded by your power and modern weapons. Although they win some battles, they lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are better than them. What is important is the outcome.¹

with this, from the just-released video:

It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations. And with that, it has become clear to all that they are the real tyrannical terrorists. In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations, yet despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that the statistic speaks of the death and displacement of the millions of human beings because of that, especially in Africa. This greatest of plagues and most dangerous of threats to the lives of humans is taking place in an accelerating fashion as the world is being dominated by the democratic system, which confirms its massive failure to protect humans and their interests from the greed and avarice of the major corporations and their representatives.

Since when does Osama bin Laden care about the Kyoto Accords? He's pissed off at us because of our alleged war against Islam, not our lack of concern for the environment. He cares about the smoke rising from our bombs, not the smoke rising from our smokestacks. These seem more to be the words of a former American Leftist than of a former Arab mujahed. Either Osama spent some time cruising the blogosphere for issues he thought Americans would identify with, or the issues were selected by someone who was himself an American — al-Amriki.

There are also important stylistic differences. Osama is fond of using flowery metaphors like "the swimmer in the sea does not fear rain" and "[George Bush is] like the one who plows and sows the sea: he harvests nothing but failure." This seems to me to be a very Arab way of speaking; I am reminded of the words of the Prophet Muḥammad when He said, "By God, if one man were to be guided at your hands, it would be better for you than red camels." (Bukhari 2942). This presumably made a lot of sense to 'Alí, to whom t was addressed, but it seems a mite peculiar to Americans. Although parts of this speech are in this highly Arab style, other parts seem to be in the much more direct manner of speech characteristic of Americans. This is also noticeable in terminology; compare the above mentioned audio tape's "influential people and war merchants in America" with the new video's much blander "major corporations".

Also present are things that I just can't imagine Osama bin Laden saying on his own. In particular, his depiction of Islam as tolerant of Christians and Jews seems inconsistent with "Every Muslim, from the moment they realize the distinction in their hearts, hates Americans, hates Jews and hates Christians."² Also somewhat curious is the sentence, "This innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th - were I to claim such a thing." Osama has, in fact, claimed precisely that, and I doubt he would have voluntarily risked drawing attention to
this dishonesty.

It seems to me that this speech was most likely written by Azzam al-Amriki and then sent to bin Laden who, after making some adjustments, read it for the video. As I said, though, I know very little about Amriki other than that he is an American convert to Salafism; a follow up post profiling him should shed further light on the situation.

UPDATE: The follow-up has been posted.

The Real Story of John Walker Lindh

I believe the case of John Lindh is an important story and worthy of this audience's attention. In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man, embarked on a spiritual quest, who became the focus of the grief and anger of an entire nation over an event in which he had no part. I refer to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. The reason I think this story is important is because our system broke down in the case of John Lindh. My goals today are first, just to tell you the story of John Lindh. Second, to ask you to reflect, based on the fact of John's case, on the importance and the fragility of the rights we enjoy under our Constitution. And my third point is to suggest that the so-called war on terrorism lacks a hearts and minds component.

I want to begin by asking you to call to mind the September 11th terrorist attacks and the shock and horror they engendered in the hearts of everyone. On that awful day, a band of terrorists, who claimed Islam as their cause, hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them full of passengers into occupied buildings without warning -- the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. They crashed the fourth airplane, also filled with passengers, into a field in Pennsylvania. Three thousand innocent Americans lost their lives that day.

But for those attacks, John's activities, which I will describe, would have been treated with indifference, or perhaps curiosity here in the United States. But, viewed through the prism of the September 11th attacks, those very same activities caused this young man to be vilified as a traitor and a terrorist.

[More]

Comment:

When I was directed to this article, I was disgusted that the people who so directed me — people that I ordinarily have a very high opinion of — would defend such traitorous scum. Yes, I realize that the Bush administration has a very long and very accomplished history of lying, but that doesn't mean that the opposite of what he says is by default true. I was especially disgusted given how clear cut cut the facts of the matter were, and intended on telling them as such — in no uncertain terms — once I had read the article. It's a good thing I did decide to read the article first, because, to my great surprise, the article turned out not to be the wishful thinking of a parent in denial (e.g. "My little Johnny would never do something like that. He's a good kid!"), but rather a persuasive, well researched piece that just so happened to be written by the subject's father. To my great surprise, I learned that most of what I had been led to believe about the basic facts of the case was simply not true. I admit to not having followed his case closely — I had other things on my mind at the time, and was in any case much younger and less aware of current affairs — but I had been under the impression that Lindh had gone to Afghanistan after 9/11 in order to fight against our retribution for the attacks, that he had been captured in combat against American troops, and that he had been convicted of committing treason.

Nope. It turns out that he had gone to Afghanistan some time earlier in order to fight the Northern Alliance, who, it turns out, were supported by the Russians (i.e. the successors of the evil atheist empire that had invaded the Realm of Islam in an effort to supplant Islam with Communism, and against which a jihad — a real one, not like Osama's unholy war — had been declared). His objectives had nothing to do with America, or the Apostasy. He wasn't captured fighting American troops, either. He actually surrendered his weapons to the Northern Alliance, which then betrayed him. Finally, he was not convicted of committing treason, or of belonging to a terrorist organization, or anything like that. He was convicted of violating the trade embargo by importing his services as a soldier.

I am aware of, and have read, both Robert Young Pelton's and Johnny Spann's rebuttal's of Mr. Lindh's speech, and I have found them wanting. Both, unlike Mr. Lindh's speech, rely on emotionally loaded language, make unsupported claims, and generally ignore facts. Moreover, both make the same two basic mistakes: they effectively treat "Taliban" and "al-Qaeda" as synonyms, and they look at al-Qaeda — and thus the Taliban — from the perspective of today, after 9/11 made it the ultimate incarnation of evil in our time (rather than just another terror group, which is what it had been). In short, they both operate under the assumption that the other grunts in Lindh's unit were evil.

In war, on the ground, there is no good and evil, only death.

Bin Laden and the Binladens

Prince Abdullah, the effective regent of Saudi Arabia, placed a soft, plump hand on his young compatriot's shoulder, smiled and spoke of friendship and loyalty. His words were smooth and conciliatory, but there was no doubting the harsh threat that lay beneath them.

"The family of Mohammed bin Laden have always been faithful subjects of our kingdom and have helped us greatly in our times of need," he told the gathering. "We are sure that nothing will be allowed to mar our good relations in the future."

It was the autumn of 1990 and Abdullah was addressing Afghan veterans in a beautifully furnished lounge in his palace in Riyadh. Although the men nodded respectfully at the prince's words, the man to whom they were directed could barely conceal his anger. "He was seething," one of the Afghan commanders said. "You could see it in his eyes."

A few months earlier, on Aug. 2, Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. Osama bin Laden, then living in his home town of Jedda, had immediately sent a message to the Saudi royal family offering to form an army of 30,000 Afghan veterans to defeat the Iraqi dictator. The men who had defeated the Russians could easily take on Saddam, he said, and he was clearly the man to lead them.

Bin Laden was in for a rude -- and profoundly upsetting -- shock. The last thing the House of al-Saud wanted was an army of zealous Islamists fighting its war. Bin Laden was received by senior royals, but his offer was firmly rejected.

Worse was to come. Instead of the Islamic army he envisaged protecting the cradle of Islam, the defense of Saudi Arabia -- and thus of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina -- was entrusted to the Americans. Bin Laden, seething with humiliation and rage, could do nothing but watch as 300,000 U.S. troops arrived in his country and set about building bases, drinking Coke and alcohol and sunbathing. Bin Laden saw their presence as an infidel invasion. It even appeared to defy directly the dying words of the Prophet Muhammad: "Let there be no two religions in Arabia." The 33-year-old started lobbying religious scholars and Muslim activists throughout the Gulf. Playing on his celebrity status, he lectured and preached throughout Saudi Arabia, circulating thousands of audio tapes through mosques.

He started recruiting his army and sent an estimated 4,000 men to Afghanistan for training. The regime grew uneasy, raided his home and put him under house arrest. Bin Laden's family, worried that his activities might jeopardize their close relations with the ruling clan, tried to bring him back into the fold but were forced eventually to effectively disown him. The pressure mounted....


Comment:

The above is excerpted from the excellent article "The making of Osama bin Laden." It details the time, and motivation, of Osama's split with his family and the House of Saud. Other parts of the article clearly demonstrate how Osama's fall into Apostasy was not influenced by, or shared with, the rest of his family. Far from growing up in some harsh Salafi dungeon, he was just a normal kid. It was later events that corrupted him.

It's a long article, but a very good read.

Senior Taliban 'held in Pakistan'

Afghan intelligence sources have told Al Jazeera that four senior members of the Taliban movement have been captured in Pakistan. The men were arrested in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province near to the border with Afghanistan, the sources said on Sunday.

The men are believed to include two senior aides to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, his chief of staff and the group's head of communications. Pakistan's security services have refused to confirm the reports.

Mullah Omar has not been seen since 2001 when he fled after US-led forces pushed the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan. In January, Afghan authorities released a videotape of a captured alleged Taliban spokesman in which he said that Mullah Omar was living in Quetta under the protection of the Pakistani security services. Islamabad has denied hiding the Taliban leader and repeatedly says it is working to stop the group from operating in southwestern Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees live in the province making it easy for Taliban members to hide among them.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

The Chief of Staff and the head of communications, excellent. I can't speculate about the "senior aides" without more information, but the capture of these two people will cause serious headaches for the Taliban—and possibly al-Qaeda. One of the Dadullahs, I forget which one, said that Osama bin Laden regularly sends communiqués to the Taliban. There is reason to be skeptical of this claim, but if it is true, Mullah Omar's head of communications may well know who the courier(s) is (are). That person, in turn, would likely know where bin Laden is, or at least might know somebody else who knows where he is. Even if the Dadullah was lying, though, the loss of his Chief of Staff and head of communications will throw the Taliban's executive office into turmoil for a while, possibly even temporarily severing it from the rest of the organization. Regrettably, it is Dadullah Mansour, not Mullah Omar, who is the Taliban's Commander in Chief, so the army is unlikely to be overly affected, but still, every bit of chaos in the enemy's camp is a good thing.

The Roots of Apostasy

There are two major theories regarding the spiritual cancer currently afflicting Islam. They might be referred to as the Wahhabi and Salafist Theories. The Apostates trace their ideology back to Muḥammad ibn 'Abdu'l-Wahháb, but the evidence points towards Salafism. While the prevalence of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia certainly facilitated the Apostasy's spread into that kingdom, the Apostasy originated outside Saudi Arabia, among the Salafists. In any case, the two terms have since become nearly synonymous.

When Salafism got its start way back in the 19th Century, it was actually not a bad thing. The original source of the idea can be traced to one Siyyid Jamálu'd-Dín-i-Afghání. He was, surprisingly, a Shiite, and in many ways what we would refer to as a liberal. He lived in the twilight of the Caliphate, and lamented the passing of supremacy from the lands of Islam to the European powers. He believed that the reason for this was the splintering and ossification of Islam. He asked, "What would the early Muslims do now?", although his ideological descendants would warp this into "What did the early Muslims do then?", and somehow even get that wrong.

Afghani eventually died, as historical figures are wont to do, and his teachings were further developed by Muḥammad Abduh, who had studied under him at the grand and glorious Azhar University in Cairo, which would end up being the incubator for all this. Abduh's ideas were inherited by a student of his, Rashid Rida, and this seems to be where darkness begins to creep into the picture. The previous Salafists, who are also referred to as Islamic Modernists in order to distinguish them from their mutant spawn, had criticized both westernization and stodgy old conservatives within Islam. Rida put most of the blame on westernization.

One of Rida's most fervent admirers was Hassan al-Banna. He went even further than Rida had, and it is with him that we begin to see the "Islamism" we all know and love. In 1928, Banna founded what has come to be known as the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's rise was meteoric, it rapidly became a major force in Egyptian politics. Enter Sayyid Qutb.

It was with Sayyid Qutb that Salafism's descent into Apostasy was completed. He was a high ranking member of the Brotherhood, and it was he who first raised the call for jihad. His Apostasy infected large parts of the Brotherhood, many of which split off to become full fledged terrorist organizations. Understandably alarmed, the Egyptian government took action against the Brotherhood, executing Qutb in 1966. Unfortunately, much of the faculty of al-Azhar University were by that time Apostates; they, in turn, churned out little Apostates, one of whom was Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.

Azzam went on to teach at a prestigious school in Saudi Arabia. When the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, he issued the fatwa declaring jihad and formed the group Maktab al-Khadamat to train and equip jihadis. When he learned that a like-minded (and rich) former student of his, Osama bin Laden, had just moved into the area, he asked him for help. Osama said sure, and they became co-leaders of the group. Then, one day, Azzam was assassinated. The culprit was never firmly identified, but it had bin Laden's style. Osama then took sole command of the group.

Thus was al-Qaeda born.



Note: It's one in the morning as I write this, so I'm not going to proofread it yet. I will tomorrow.

'Osama Bin Laden alive and well'

Osama Bin Laden is alive and well and issuing orders to his commmanders, says the new military leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Speaking exclusively to Al Jazeera, Mansour Dadullah, whose brother led military operations for the Taliban until his death in May, said he has received a letter of condolence from Bin Laden.

Mansour said: "Sheikh Osama Bin Laden is alive and active. He’s carrying out his duties. "The latest proof that he alive is that he sent me a letter of condolences after the martyrdom of my brother. He advised me to follow my brother’s path."

[More]

Comment

I suspect that the Taliban may be losing contact with Osama bin Laden. It's been well over half a year now since he last issued a videotape. Dadullah 1.0 felt the need to offer that ridiculous lie about Osama being directly involved in planning a random suicide attack. Dadullah 2.0 feels the need to offer us "proof" of OBL's continued relevance, and the fact that he himself thinks of it as proof suggests that even he might harbor some doubts.

So what's the story? Is Osama bin Laden not alive and well? Something tells me this is not the case; that if he died the Taliban's reaction would be different. I suspect that what's happening is that his safe haven amongst the tribes is no longer quite so safe. One of the lessons al-Qaeda has somehow never managed to learn is that if you want the masses to rise up in support of you, it's generally a bad idea to start executing their friends and neighbors. Al-Qaeda learned this the hard way a few months ago when the tribesmen in the vicinity of Kana annihilated an Apostate Uzbek force that had been enjoying their hospitality and assassinating their leaders. I suspect that Osama no longer feels safe in Pashtunistan, and has consequently withdrawn further into hiding. He may even be contemplating leaving the area, though I can't imagine where he would go.

Al-Qaeda's Afghan head 'named'

Al Jazeera has obtained a videotape showing Mustafa Abu al-Yazid presenting himself as the leader of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In the tape, sections of which were aired on Thursday, al-Yazid said that al-Qaeda fighters would soon carry out attacks, and that al-Qaeda's Arab fighters were working "side by side" with its non-Arabs fighters.

He said: "The number of fighters is increasing. The support they receive from Muslims in Afghanistan is almost total." Abu al-Yazid said that al-Qaeda fighters trained during winter to carry out massive attacks in the current season. [More]


Comment:

Interesting. As I had previously understood it, the al-Qaeda group operating in Afghanistan and the main al-Qaeda "High Command" were one and the same. Either I was gravely mistaken, which in this case seems unlikely, or al-Qaeda has reorganized itself to make the High Command a little more global in nature, while emphasizing the local nature of "al-Qaeda in Afghanistan."

It's also interesting, though hardly surprising, that the Apostates in al-Qaeda and the Taliban lie so freely. The Qur'án says, "a painful doom is theirs, because they lie,"¹ yet they have no problem whatsoever claiming near universal support when things like this happen:

...suspected Taliban insurgents clashed with villagers in western Afghanistan, leaving three militants killed and one villager wounded, an official said Sunday. The clash occurred after militants attacked a group of Afghan and Indian engineers surveying a dam in Bala Buluk area of Farah province on Saturday, said Anwar Khan, a spokesman for the province's police chief. Some 150 villagers came out to help the engineers and exchanged fire for some 20 minutes with militants, he said. Three militants were killed and one villager was wounded in the clash, Khan said.²

God alone know how they justify their actions, and I sincerely doubt he accepts their excuses.

UPDATE: It seems that I was, in fact, "gravely mistaken." According to Afghanistanica, that al-Iraqi fellow who briefly popped up in the news not to long ago was the former head of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I'm not sure why it took them so long to find a replacement. You can read the rest of Afghanistanica's analysis here.


¹ 2:10, Pickthal translation. Incidentally, the Apostates would do well to heed the next two verses as well, which state, " And when it is said unto them: Make not mischief in the earth, they say: We are peacemakers only./ Are not they indeed the mischief-makers? But they perceive not."

² From an article by FOX News.

Via Al Jazeera.

Afghan leaders urge Taliban truce

Outraged by the rising number of civilian deaths, Afghan legislators have approved a bill calling for a truce and talks with the Taliban. The bill passed on Wednesday says military action should be used only in self-defence and calls for a date to be set for the withdrawal of US-led and Nato troops.

The move came as news emerged of US air strikes in Helmand province, southwest of the capital, Kabul, where at least 21 civilians were killed as US and Nato forces went after Taliban fighters. "Twenty-one civilians, including women and children, were killed," the governor of Helmand said. [More]


Comment:

So, it has finally come to this. Who would have thought, back in 2001, that Osama would end up getting away with it? Who would have thought that the mightiest nation on the face of the earth would take so long to defeat a single civilian that it would overstay its welcome and be forced to leave? Who would have thought that we would fail?

I remember, in 2002, walking home from school, seeing the newspaper still in the driveway, and reading that fateful headline stating that Bush had accused Saddam Hussein of having weapons of mass destruction. I remember feeling my heart sink, an almost sickening sensation, and thinking, "This is the beginning of the end." We were on the verge of victory, and then the president abandoned his promise and set off on a quixotic quest of his own. Five years have gone by, and still Osama walks free. If this bill passes, he will die free as well.

And even if it doesn't pass, what then? It would be nice if we could quadruple the size of our forces there, send the fatigued and the strained home to recuperate, fully equip our army with the latest technology, as we once would have done. But we cannot. Our soldiers are in Iraq, there are no reinforcements, there is no left over funding. The right wing has accused the left of being defeatist, of wanting to surrender. In reality, it is President Bush who surrendered when he pulled our forces out of Afghanistan without capturing bin Laden. He left enough to maintain a stalemate, but a person who chooses stalemate over victory has given in and given up.

It figures that it should have worked out like this. America was to great a nation for any outside force to defeat it. It took one of our own to bring us to our knees.

More:
Afghan Legislature Passes Bill To Open Talks With Taliban
Afghan Bill Calls for Talks With Taliban

U.S. Official: Libyan Behind Afghan Attack During Cheney Visit

KABUL, Afghanistan — A Libyan Al Qaeda commander was likely behind the suicide bombing that killed 23 people outside the main U.S. base in Afghanistan during a February visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press.

Abu Laith al-Libi, who was featured in an Al Qaeda video last week, is believed to have trained bombers at terror camps, including one busted by U.S. forces in the eastern province of Khost in 2005, said Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Cheney was deep inside the sprawling Bagram base at the time of the attack and was not hurt, but the bombing added to the impression that Western forces and the shaky government of President Hamid Karzai are vulnerable to assault by Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.

"Our information suggests that Abu Laith al-Libi was the terrorist who planned the Feb. 27 suicide bomb attack at Bagram Airfield," Belcher said.

"We have information that the planning of this attack was falsely attributed to Usama bin Laden by (Taliban commander) Mullah Dadullah, in order to boost the morale of bin Laden's followers worldwide, in an attempt to reassure those followers that bin Laden is not ill or dead," he said. [More]

Comment:

I thought that seemed a little suspicious. I am slightly skeptical of Maj. Belcher's explanation, though. How is a lie so transparent that even most invertebrates aren't fooled supposed to boost morale? Is Dadullah's opinion of his followers' intelligence really that low? And who in their right mind would hire someone named "Belcher" to be their spokesman?

Saudis arrest 172 in 'terror raid'

Saudi officials say they have foiled an al Qaeda-linked plot to attack oil facilities and military bases in the kingdom and arrested up to 172 suspects, including trainee pilots preparing for suicide operations.X The interior ministry said in a statement on on Friday that police seized weapons and over $5.33m in cash from seven armed cells.

The statement, broadcast on Al-Ekhbaria state television, said: "Some had begun training on the use of weapons, and some were sent to other countries to study aviation in preparation to use them to carry out terrorist operations inside the kingdom."

The ministry said that the suspects were plotting to carry out suicide attacks on public figures and oil installations in addition to targeting military bases.


Comment:
I find it peculiar that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is willing to attack oil facilities. I believe that they have actually made such an attack on at least one occasion. While on the one hand attacking the Saudis' source of wealth certainly makes strategic sense, on the other hand it could cause problems further down the road, as Osama bin Laden stated in his 1996 fatwa:

The presence of the USA Crusader military forces on land, sea and air of the states of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger threatening the largest oil reserve in the world. The existence of these forces in the area will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion, feelings and prides and push them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land; therefore spread of the fighting in the region will expose the oil wealth to the danger of being burned up. The economic interests of the States of the Gulf and the land of the two Holy Places will be damaged and even a greater damage will be caused to the economy of the world. I would like here to alert my brothers, the Mujahideen, the sons of the nation, to protect this (oil) wealth and not to include it in the battle as it is a great Islamic wealth and a large economical power essential for the soon to be established Islamic state, by Allah's Permission and Grace. We also warn the aggressors, the USA, against burning this Islamic wealth (a crime which they may commit in order to prevent it, at the end of the war, from falling in the hands of its legitimate owners and to cause economic damages to the competitors of the USA in Europe or the Far East, particularly Japan which is the major consumer of the oil of the region).

Curious.

Day 2,006

It has been determined that the man captured in 'Iraq yesterday was not al-Baghdadi but the leader of an al-Qaeda group distinct from the Islamic State of 'Iraq.

In Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden celebrated his 50th birthday, with Taliban troops around the country praying for him to live another "200 years". A spokesman for the Taliban described the prayers as "long"¹. The Taliban has also stated that it will "slaughter" a captured journalist unless two of its spokesmen are released and the Italian government sets a withdrawal date. It has given Italy one week to comply. The journalist, Daniele Mastrogicomo, has been accused of being a coalition spy, a charge his colleagues deny.

¹Source: Al-Jazeera