The Guidebook for Taking a Life

10 June NY Times - The Guidebook for Taking a Life by Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet.

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... With Islamist violence brewing in various parts of the world, the set of rules that seek to guide and justify the killing that militants do is growing more complex.

This jihad etiquette is not written down, and for good reason. It varies as much in interpretation and practice as extremist groups vary in their goals. But the rules have some general themes that underlie actions ranging from the recent rash of suicide bombings in Algeria and Somalia, to the surge in beheadings and bombings by separatist Muslims in Thailand.

Some of these rules have deep roots in the Middle East...

Rule No. 1: You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt...

Rule No. 2: You can kill children, too, without needing to feel distress...

Rule No. 3: Sometimes, you can single out civilians for killing; bankers are an example...

Rule No. 4: You cannot kill in the country where you reside unless you were born there...

Rule No. 5: You can lie or hide your religion if you do this for jihad...

Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent...

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What is remarkable about the story is that the NY Times never mentions the Geneva Conventions requirements when it comes to the enemy Rules of Engagement. It is just a unilateral contract binding one side of the conflict and ignored by the other. It is also ignored by the Times when violated by the enemy. However for those Marines at Haditha trying to distinguish between an enemy who camouflages himself as a civilian and a real civilian, that is a different story.

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Rule No. 1: You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt...

Rule No. 2: You can kill children, too, without needing to feel distress...

Rule No. 3: Sometimes, you can single out civilians for killing; bankers are an example..

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Seems like we agree with at least the first three given we dropped 2000lb. bombs on a crowded Bagdad restaurant on the rumor that Qusay and Usay were eating there.

I fail to see the relevence of this post unless it is to evoke general discussion of the morality of the various ROE.

I took the opportunity to read the article again and in the end, I am very confused. It appeared to me that the author tried to come up with a blanket rules of engagement and moral code for global Jihadists ... I was quite surprised that in fact everyone of those "guidelines" did not actually come from any written AQ doctrine or manual... we have lots of that in fact, but came from overly broad suppositions the author decided fit into his analysis of what he believed the jihadi world operates under and tainted it with a rather sarcastic reading of his disbelief in the propriety of these rules within the community of AQ operatives.

Case in point, Rule #1 ... You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt. Nowhere does it say this in his example or in the Koran that its guilt free. Usually killing of innocents results in payment of Diyya, or blood money, or the loss would require religious justification by a ruling that the innocent were martyrs lost in the greater struggle. UBL portends to explain to the victims in this away despite the fact that he is not an imam or Islamic jurist. Same with Rule #2. It is an observation that because Jihadi combat or terrorism results in these deaths that there must be a set of rules. AQ actually goes to great lengths to find Islamic scholars that can rule in their favor in order for them to carry out operations. The religious ruling for the use of nuclear weapons by UBL is case in point... it took him several years to find a legal/religious framework for him to mentally justify it in his own mind.

Rule#4 is likewise laughable - You cannot kill in the country where you reside unless you were born there.

This observation goes against the entirety of the meaning of the pan-Islamic Jihad... it immediately is refuted by nearly every Jihadist action from the 1979 Invasion of Afghanistan to today in Iraq. How he came up with this rule is beyond me. No written or spoekn work of AQ, or other like minded islamist or salafist Jihadist groups supports this contention, not even Egypt, Morocco or Chechnya. This interpretation of a greater Jihad, like Islam's call to Allah, is internationalism at its best and that equality of men and nations is what binds the modern jihadis to the mission, that they are living the diverse lifestyle nationalities/tribes, just like the original companions of the prophet. If Rule #4 was in force in 622 then Bilal (ibn Ribah), one of the Prophets closest companions and a freed Ethiopian slave, would never have qualified for the original Jihad.

Rule No. 5: You can lie or hide your religion if you do this for jihad. In the AQ encyclopedia of the Jihad, the AQ Manchester Manual the organization emphasized three things when operating as a covert Jihadi ... Tradecraft, tradecraft, tradecraft. From the moment that Khalid Sheik Mohammed decided to make AQ over into a covert intelligence-agency like body, AQ has stressed the use of Takiyya, or dissimulation, when confronted by hostile law enforcement or intelligence. It is the covert nature of the organization to survive that dictated this rule, not an unspoken gentleman's agreement based on Islam. It is technically free reign to create a cover story.

Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent. of all the men I have studies, met or see blasted to bits, including all of the 19 9/11 hijackers and their supporting staff ... no one informed or asked their parents to be martyrs or Jihadis. In fact, most parents are shocked and surprised. One of my favorite examples is recent convertee Muriel Degauque, the Caucasian Belgian woman who said not one word to her parents about even leaving the country and went with he husband to conduct a dual suicide bombing in Baqubah. Even Palestinian SPBIED bombers have a track record of not informing their parents.

Case Study: When 18 year old Zeinab Abu Salem blew herself up at an army bus stop, a report notes

"Relatives of Zeinab Abu Salem had little time to absorb the shock. They rushed to empty the family home in the Palestinian refugee camp of Askar near the West Bank city of Nablus, expecting Israeli bulldozers to soon come to demolish it. "I don't know what's happening," said Abu Salem's 12-year-old brother Tarek, in disbelief that his sister had died. "I don't know where she is. She isn't at home." Family members said they had known nothing of Abu Salem's plans for the attack. Her father Ali, recovering from surgery to open clogged arteries, collapsed and was taken to hospital after learning of his daughter's death."

That article was actually a disservice to all serious practitioners. In fact, the reason they weren't kidnapped in Zarqa wasn't because of a code of ethics (I personally believe it was possibly a joking comment since Zarqawi was born there) ... it’s because Jordanian Intelligence would be waiting to swiftly obliterate everyone associated with an abduction of a westerner. Zarqa is a nice town, my neighbor comes from there, I’ve visited the city but it is controlled lock, stock and barrel by the Jordanian government.

IMHO, a better article based on detailed AQ documented doctrine on Jihadi ROE and code of ethics needs to be written.

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Originally Posted by walrus

Seems like we agree with at least the first three given we dropped 2000lb. bombs on a crowded Bagdad restaurant on the rumor that Qusay and Usay were eating there.

I fail to see the relevence of this post unless it is to evoke general discussion of the morality of the various ROE.

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Address the articles posted here - not the "why" it is posted on SWC. Items that will recieve attention in the general population are posted for discussion and those that may have bought a particular story line can see the "other side" of the story. If you sincerely believe that I am going to go ### for tat with you on items posted on this board - explaining the why it is posted you are sorely mistaken. Got it?

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Originally Posted by walrus

I fail to see the relevence of this post unless it is to evoke general discussion of the morality of the various ROE.

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I think we shld discuss the OPFOR's ROE. Since I spent an hour responding to it I think it is highly relevant too! :D

Some elaboration on Abu Buckwheat's commentary on point #1.
Shaikh Ibn Jibreen and Shaikh Muahmmed ash-Shanqeetee have served this purpose well, providing justification. I would imagine in the Kharijiti, Salafi and Takfiri sects in particular there are any number of quasi religious 'scholars' giving the quaranic nod of approval.

Even from scholars of moderation there is leeway given, as noted from the commentary of Imam Muhammed Al Albaanee:

"Therefore when the commander of the army of Muslims – delegated that duty by the Muslim Khaleefah – orders a single soldier to employ a particular action from the contemporary means of suicide (missions during the battle) then this is to be considered Jihaad in the way of Allaah."


Straying bit from the topic, but related, is this from FOX News:

"FOXNEWS.COM HOME > U.S.

Inmates File Suit After Prisons Ban Some Religious Books Over Terrorism Fears
Sunday, June 10, 2007

NEW YORK — Inmates at the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., were stunned by what they saw at the chapel library on Memorial Day — hundreds of books had disappeared from the shelves.

The removal of the books is occurring nationwide, part of a long-delayed, post-Sept. 11 federal directive intended to prevent radical religious texts, specifically Islamic ones, from falling into the hands of violent inmates.

Three inmates at Otisville filed a lawsuit over the policy, saying their Constitutional rights were violated. They say all religions were affected."

I view this article in the NYT is a breakthrough in the home front IO war. It seems to be a MSM article that actually paints the bad guys as bad guys. If you read between the lines of the 6 cited "rules of engagement," I believe that the real point of this story is to demonstrate that the terrorists in Iraq really are terrorists. I think we may be seeing the start of the normal "demonizing" of our opponents that has historically characterized the American way of justifying our continued involvement in anything other than a very short war. Maybe General MacCaffrey was wrong in his assessment that the war at home is lost.

Research indicates that once public opinion slides away from supporting a war, it will not return. This was the case in both Vietnam and Korea.

I doubt the American public's lack of support for the war comes from any sort of idea that the insurgency are wonderful people. In Korea, Americans did not turn away because they became convinced that Communism was the right system for Korea. Rather they became convinced that the war's goals are not achievable at a price they judged worth paying. In this sort of war, where the goal itself is amorphous and whose justifications have shifted repeatedly over time, this sort of support is even more difficult to sustain.

It's a shock that it's taken five years for the NY Times to write anything about what the enemy really thinks. It's commendable. But being the NY Times, they had to put in this little piece of moral equivalence rot:

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Islamic militants are hardly alone in seeking to rationalize innocent deaths, says John O. Voll, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University. “Whether you are talking about leftist radicals here in the 1960s, or the apologies for civilian collateral damage in Iraq that you get from the Pentagon, the argument is that if the action is just, the collateral damage is justifiable,” he says.

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Leave it to the NY Times to compare Jihadists who glory in blowing up innocents to the US Armed Forces. Despicable.