I don't have the numbers,
but maybe someone else has them (with sources), and that is an estimate of adherents to "ala Qutb and Salafism" among Muslims. Also MB adherents among its various branches. Then we could have some fact-based discussion - I know, I'm no fun.
This stuff can get pretty esoteric as in this SWJ publication, Jai Singh and John David Perry, Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s Citations of the Qur’an: A Descriptive Study of Selected Works (2010) (pdf pp.12-14):
Quote:
The most cited chapters were at Tawba (Surah 9, 39 citations), aal-e-Imran (Surah 3, 32 citations), an Nisa (Surah 4, 31 citations), al Maeda (Surah 5, 26 citations), al Anfal (Surah 8, 23 citations), al Baqara (Surah 2, 16 citations), al Ahzab (Surah 33, 16) and Muhammad (Surah 47, 12 citations). Taken together, these eight chapters provided a substantial portion of all chapters cited (69.1%).
....
The distribution of ayat cited within each surah was then considered (using all 428 ayat). The most cited surahs were all Medinan era with al Baqara (Surah 2, 18 citations), Aal-E-Imran (Surah 3, 58 citations), an Nisa (Surah 4, 42 citations), al Maeda (Surah 5, 43 citations), al Anfal (Surah 8, 31 citations), at Tawba (Surah 9, 58 citations), al Ahzab (Surah 33, 35 citations) and Muhammad (Surah 47, 21 citations). Together, these citations represented 71.5% (306 of 428) of all citations noted. The distribution of ayat cited in each of these surahs is shown in Figures 1.
.....
The three most oft-cited ayat were Surah at Tawba (9:38, 13 citations) and Surah al Maeda (5: 51, 10 citations; 5:52, 9 citations). Neither of the “sword verses,” 9:5 and 9:29, were cited by al Zawahiri.
I found the last sentence interesting - since he has no aversion to the sword.
Regards
Mike
Al-Qaida and the Arab spring: after bin Laden
Paul Rogers writes a commentary, summarised as:
Quote:
The death of the al-Qaida leader is a symbolic moment. But far more important is that the future of his movement - and much else besides - is closely tied to the success or failure of the Arab risings.
Near the end:
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The hope within al-Qaida is that the aspirations embodied in the Arab spring are dashed, and that it can benefit from the ensuing deep disillusion..... After the failure of democratic and non-violent protest, they will work strenuously to embed a core idea - that the only path to renewal is Islamist and it must be won by violence.
Clearly there is an overlap here with Bob's World's writings.
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-ro...fter-bin-laden
AQAP likes aviation, keep the guard up
I'm sure after the underwear bomber attack and another attack I've posted that we are lucky AQ seem to have preference for attacking aviation.
In a short analysis an open source terrorism analyst, Raffaello Pantucci, refers to:
Quote:
But for terrorists the optimal target will continue to be aircraft in transit. The problem from a terrorist’s perspective is that a bomb at an airport is very similar to a bomb in any other public place, except the security is tighter ..... Consequently, it can seem easier to simply deposit a device on a public transport system where security will be far less. Furthermore, it lacks the drama of an attack on an international flight.
As Brian Michael Jenkins put it in 1974, “terrorism is theater” and an airplane full of people traveling between two developed economies remains the only sure way to guarantee a large media splash, dramatic economic damage and intense attention for your cause. Given AQAP’s continuing fixation with aviation, security in the air will continue to be a major headache in the years to come.
Link:http://raffaellopantucci.com/2011/05...g-at-aviation/
I do wonder what we would do if AQ or AQAP decided on an alternative target set, which fulfilled:
Quote:
..a large media splash, dramatic economic damage and intense attention for your cause.
A number of targets come to mind: mass transit, a few parts of critical national infrastructure (CNI) and "theatre" at iconic targets.
The coming struggle within al-Qaeda
A short briefing paper on 'The coming struggle within al-Qaeda' by the UK-based Quilliam Foundation:http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/images/aq10may.pdf
It ends with:
Quote:
For the international community, this range of competing trends within al-Qaeda, combined with the game-changing developments of the Arab spring, together create a unique opportunity to undermine and divide al-Qaeda at an ideological and practical level. While military force certainly has a role to play against Al-Qaeda (as was demonstrated by the US raid that killed bin Laden), other tools may also become increasingly effective at fragmenting the organisation from within.
What makes this worth reading is one of the two authors is Noman Benotman, an ex-LIFG leader and who was at one time an "insider" within 'AQ Central'.
Crisis in Yemen, the Rise of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and U.S. National Sec
Crisis in Yemen, the Rise of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and U.S. National Security
Entry Excerpt:
Crisis in Yemen, the Rise of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and U.S. National Security - Highlights from today's American Enterprise Institute event in Washington, D.C., can be found at the link. Participants included Christopher Boucek, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Edmund J. Hull, Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen; Katheline Zimmerman, AEI; and Frederick W. Kagan, AEI.
Event summary follows: The United States must develop a comprehensive strategy toward Yemen beyond counterterrorism, panelists concluded Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. Katherine Zimmerman, an analyst and the Gulf of Aden Team Lead for AEI's Critical Threats Project, outlined the six most likely and dangerous crisis scenarios in Yemen that could result from the current political stalemate, including the collapse of Yemen's economy or a mass-casualty attack on the United States by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Frederick W. Kagan, the director of AEI's Critical Threats Project, argued that the United States, in addition to its regional and international partners, has a vested interest in preventing Yemen from complete state collapse. Christopher Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace pointed out that while current American strategy is focused almost exclusively on counterterrorism, the greatest threat facing Yemenis daily is the looming meltdown of their economy--not al Qaeda.
Ambassador Edmund J. Hull described the challenges of on-the-ground implementation of a comprehensive strategy, given the limited ability of US officials to operate beyond the capital, San'a, due to security concerns. The panelists advocated drawing on the lessons from the American experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq to fine-tune an appropriate approach to Yemen that links development gains and security gains.
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Marc Sageman on the fuutreof Terrorism after bin Ladens death
Marc Sageman was in Switzerland this week, where he held a lecture on the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He also gave an Interview to the online magazine of the University. Keeping the danger of terrorism in perspective, he sees no danger that radical elements could seize power in the arab countries, especially Egypt. Equally, he judges the risk from radicalized groups or individuals for Western societies as negligible.
For those who want to improve their German I link the article from the homepage of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology:
http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_a...mann_sch/index
Regards
PB
Al-Qaida’s Business Savvy Sows Uncertain Future
A good commentary, from a variety of opinions, although I've not watched the pod casts by an ex-AQ insider. The bureaucratic aspects I'd not seen before.
Ends with:
Quote:
Whatever the future maybe, al-Qaida faces challenges beyond that of getting used to a new leader. Gerges said the group is also grappling with financial issues as well as the existential threat of the Arab Spring, the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.
Al-Qaida also faces the threat of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, seemingly rejuvenated by the death of bin Laden and the troves of secrets taken from his compound. Still, analyst Bruce Hoffman said al-Qaida's corporate structure will help keep the group in business.
Link:http://www.voanews.com/english/news/...124280919.html
Why so few have joined al Qaeda's jihad
Hat tip to FP Blog for 'Why Is It So Hard to Find a Suicide Bomber These Days?', which is sub-titled 'A decade after 9/11, the mystery is not why so many Muslims turn to terror - but why so few have joined al Qaeda's jihad'.
Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._days?page=0,0
The author starts looking at the case of Mohammed Taheri-Azar, who launched a vehicle attack on fellow students at the University of North Carolina in 2006.
Quote:
For several decades now, Islamist terrorists have called it a duty for Muslims to engage in armed jihad...Tens of thousands have obeyed, perhaps as many as 100,000 over the past quarter-century, according to the U.S. DHS...At the same time, more than a billion Muslims -- well over 99 percent -- ignored the call to action....by my calculations, global Islamist terrorists have managed to recruit fewer than 1 in 15,000 Muslims over the past quarter-century and fewer than 1 in 100,000 Muslims since 9/11. (Moving on)
By the U.S. Justice Department's count, approximately a dozen people in the country were convicted in the five years after 9/11 for having links with al Qaeda. During this period, fewer than 40 Muslim Americans planned or carried out acts of domestic terrorism... None of these attacks was found to be associated with al Qaeda.
(Final sentence) We may not be so lucky in the future. But even if they succeed in killing thousands of us, attacks like these do not threaten our way of life, unless we let them.
I am sure we will see more such commentaries before the 9/11 anniversary. SWC has touched upon this issue before, although on a quick scan I failed to identify other thread(s). Often I cite Bob Jones reference to the difference between those who are angry and those who are motivated to take action.
What FP Blog did not state is the author, Charles Kurzman, has written a book 'The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists' and was reviewed on:http://motherjones.com/mixed-media/2...zman-jihadists
Amazon link, no reviews:http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...orists&x=0&y=0
Results of "How big is al Qaeda?"
Thanks to all those that voted on this post.
For some reason this post got stuck in OIF section.
So I just posted the results in the GWOT section.
Here is the link to the results here.
Stop looking for the next al-Qaida
A review article by Jason Burke that starts with:
Quote:
We've made progress fighting 'blame al-Qaida syndrome', but the search for new threats creates another dangerous disorder......In the last week there have been two good examples of a very familiar malaise that periodically affects governments around the world. Let's call it "blame al-Qaida syndrome".
Link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-next-al-qaida
For an example of the 'blame' syndrome:
Quote:
"Operating largely from northern Mali, [al-Qaida in the Maghreb] presents an increased threat to our security," William Hague, the foreign secretary, recently told parliament.
It's not often that someone based in northern Mali, one of the most remote, poorest and desolate parts of the world, is described as an increased threat to anyone, let alone the UK or Europe, and it is difficult to really see the al-Qaida in the Maghreb organisation as one that should particularly worry the British or other security authorities. It has 1,000 or so active members at most, limited resources and almost no reach into Europe beyond a few scattered sympathisers. Its operations have been largely local and, though some of their antecedent groups in the region launched attacks in Europe, it has yet to do so.
Sounds like David Kilcullen's Accidental Guerilla needs updating IMHO. Who are our enemies?
Al Qaeda on the Ropes: One Fighter's Inside Story
A Newsweek article, that appeared on The Daily Beast, which opens with a sub-title:
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A young jihadist returns to his former unit on the Afghan border and finds only the desperate remnants of bin Laden’s once-dreaded organization.
Quote:
Deep among North Waziristan’s mountains, far from any village, Hafiz Hanif finally tracked down the remnants of his old al Qaeda cell last summer. The 17-year-old Afghan had wondered why he hadn’t heard from his former comrades in arms. They didn’t even answer his text messages in May, after the death of the man they all called simply the Sheik: Osama bin Laden. Now Hanif saw why. Only four of the cell’s 15 fighters were left, huddled in a two-room mud-brick house, with little or no money or food. Except for their familiar but haggard faces, they looked nothing like the al Qaeda he once trained with and fought beside. They welcomed him warmly but didn’t encourage him to stay. They said the cell’s commander, a Kuwaiti named Sheik Attiya Ayatullah, had gone into hiding. The others had either run off or died. “Why should we call you back just to get killed in a drone attack?” Hanif’s friends explained.
Link:http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...ide-story.html
Worth reading. Some may find it chimes with the stated impact of the drone attacks, the ambivalent stance of the Pakistani Army and more.
AQ's Centre of Gravity: A Discussion with NYPD Intel Chief
Hat tip to ICSR for providing a link to the London book launch of 'The Al-Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West' by Mitchell Silber, NYPD's Head of Intelligence Analysis:http://icsr.info/news/al-qaedas-cent...pd-intel-chief
Quote:
Silber analyses sixteen of the biggest jihadist plots against Western countries in order to determine the precise role, if any, played by the central al-Qaeda organisation.
His findings include the following:
Al-Qaeda Core’s actual role in plots against the West has been overstated, though their importance as an external inspiration endures.
Much more of the “action of the conspiracies” has taken place in the West, by Westerners, independent of Al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda has not actively recruited in the West; rather the plots are underpinned by a “bottom-up” process, driven by individuals in the West who radicalise and then take the initiative to go overseas for training or to get into the fight.
Al-Qaeda has been opportunistic, taking advantage of the Westerners who have shown up on its doorstep to utilise them in plots against the West.
Post Bin-Laden, given the combination of Westerners who continue to radicalise/mobilise plus the rise of other important nodes in al Qaeda’s worldwide network of allies and affiliates, the threat from al Qaeda type terrorism has not ended.
On the link is a podcast and the PPT slides used. I've ordered the book and will add a review when read.
Amazon has no reviews yet:http://www.amazon.com/Al-Qaeda-Facto...7947515&sr=1-1
Al Qaeda’s Strategy Paper on Its War of Attrition
A strange document seized by the Germans from an AQ courier and now in the public arena; hat tip to various sources.
Quote:
a strategy paper drafted by the al-Qa’ida leadership based in the Pakistani-Afghan border area suggests that a combination of smaller and larger attacks “will drive the enemy to despair.” Other documents describe the taking and subsequent killing of hostages, the use of toxic substances, and how to give cover to fighters smuggled in.
Al-Qa’ida expects that growing fear among the general population and increasing reprisals on the part of the security authorities will marginalize Muslims. As a result of such escalation, Muslims will join the Holy War in ever larger numbers, security sources quote from the papers.
Link, with no more citations alas from the paper:http://gunpowderandlead.wordpress.co...-of-attrition/
The author's commentary (in part):
Quote:
...this strategy paper shows that the group continues to depend on the West’s reactions to advance its objectives, demonstrated by its expectation that “increasing reprisals on the part of the security authorities will marginalize Muslims,” thus causing more Muslims to flock to al Qaeda’s jihad.
Having listened recently to several Muslim community members they would echo the danger of reprisals. Their words were more direct:
Quote:
What pisses off a jihadi? Think about it.
and:
Quote:
Add Do not provoke to Op Contest (the UK CT strategy).
Al Qaeda in its Third Decade
Al Qaeda in its Third Decade
Entry Excerpt:
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Assessing al-Qaeda’s in-theater capabilities
An excellent analysis by Leah Farrell, from Australia, and in summary:
Quote:
Despite leadership losses, Al-Qaeda has exhibited significant consistency and continuity in its operational focus and planning and training activities, which are driven largely by institutional factors rather than by key individuals.
Al-Qaeda can remain operationally active and viable so long as it can access and deploy a small number of recruits. It has demonstrated in recent years that, even with the loss of its senior leaders, this capacity continues.
Prolonged operational impotence is the greatest threat to Al-Qaeda’s organizational unity and viability
It ends with:
Quote:
The solution for Al-Qaeda central in maintaining its operational effectiveness and forward focus is likely to be much as it has always been: to continue efforts to successfully carry out mass impact attacks against Western targets, which are an assured means of raising
its profile, attracting support, and quelling any internal dissent and rivalries within the organization.
Thus, despite its current operational impotency, and its inability to carry out a successful external attack, Al-Qaeda’s focus on this approach is unlikely to change over the medium- and long-term, regardless of who assumes the leadership position. Rather, maintaining this focus will be crucial to ensuring organizational unity and longevity as it deals with more generational change. Such a focus would also help ameliorate any issues caused by parochial or local focuses becoming more prominent in Al-Qaeda’s public narrative.
Absent of this success, Al-Qaeda’s longer-term future as a unified and functioning organization is questionable. Nevertheless, as a mode of action, the notion of Al-Qaeda will endure
Link:http://allthingsct.files.wordpress.c...ticle-2012.pdf
Al Qaeda’s Strategy Paper on Its War of Attrition: Part Two
A fascinating analysis by Raffaello Pantucci of ICSR that refers to the documents seized in Germany from an AQ courier (See Post 23); the title is 'The British End of the German al Qaeda documents' and the focus is on the UK and terrorism. Security, strategy and much, much more to absorb.
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From the understanding I have, the papers are essentially a post-operation report on the July 7, July 21, and Overt bomb plots (Overt was the codename for the 2006 attempt by Abdulla Ali and a bunch of his mates to bring down about eight planes as they made there way to America) and German intelligence seems pretty convinced that this was written by Rashid Rauf, the infamous British-Pakistani terrorist operator. This is apparently based on the detailed knowledge of the British plots and some biographical details that are mentioned.
Link:http://icsr.info/blog/The-British-En...aeda-documents
A summary of the original documents, in English is on:http://abususu.blogspot.co.uk/2012/0...urface-in.html
Having listened to the author at a conference I can commend his work
Caveat:
Quote:
..Die ZEIT is only published in German and the article is not online..
There is another German journalist who has commented on his blog:http://ojihad.wordpress.com/2012/03/...red-in-berlin/
AQ Papers found in porn file
An updated CNN article on Rashid Rauf's role on Operation Overt, the planned airliners liquid bombs attack:http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/30/wo...nts/?hpt=hp_t1
Alongside a CNN piece on the German seizures :http://edition.cnn.com/video/?iid=ar...s-combined.cnn
AQ core: still has the ability to resurrect?
Leah Farrell's comment:
Quote:
By my count AQ core has resurrected itself three times--each when it had less than 50 members.
Nothing like an Australian to ask painful questions. For those not familiar with Leah's background:http://allthingscounterterrorism.com/about/
On SWC we have looked a number of aspects about AQ, not its ability to resurrect itself.
My first thoughts are: a) it is the resilience of the message, b) 'small is beautiful' easy to finance, organise etc and c) will it work minus OBL?