Assessing Al-Qaeda (merged thread)

[bourbon]

Maybe a minor point, but why use 'the U.S. base in Benghazi', my emphasis. It was a diplomatic building, although we now know some murky activity was under-way elsewhere.

Just as the State Department has an embassy in a capital city and consulates in other cities - CIA has a 'station' in the embassy and 'bases' in other cities.

[davidbfpo]

Transnational networks are indeed a function of modern Islamist terrorism, as they are of almost every other aspect of modern life. Just as with cross-border fraud or organised crime, they require an enhanced international response. But they have not been unknown in the past. The Fenian bombing campaign in London of the 1880s depended upon its foreign training camp – the Brooklyn Dynamite School – and the propaganda produced under First Amendment freedoms including that notable New York periodical, “Ireland’s Liberator and Dynamite Monthly”. The identification of religiously-inspired plotters with foreign powers and foreign training goes further back than that: several of the Gunpowder plotters of 1605 were educated by foreign Jesuits; while their explosives expert Guy Fawkes was recruited for the task in Flanders, where he had learned his skills as a mercenary, originally for the same King of Spain – Philip II – who had recently launched the Spanish Armada.

From an article 'Shielding the Compass: How to Fight Terrorism Without Defeating the Law' by David Anderson, a UK lawyer and now the Independent Reviewer of Terrorist Legislation - which I am currently reading:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=2292950

The passage cited illustrates that so much of contemporary terrorism is not new and has some odd historical episodes.

[davidbfpo]

Somewhere there is a thread on the management style of AQ, but on a quick search it has eluded me.

Returning to this issue, assessing AQ's future, was prompted by a short article in Foreign Affairs 'The Business Habits of Highly Effective Terrorists Why Terror Masterminds Rely on Micro-Management' by Jacob Shapiro, which has some illuminating insights:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...ists?page=show

[davidbfpo]

I missed in the last post jacob Shapiro had written a book 'The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations' and Clints Watts has done a short review, with my emphasis:

I’m only about 50-60 pages in and it is fantastic....is a must read for those trying to understand how terrorist group’s make decisions and I hope everyone gets a chance to read it. It’s well written and uses a fantastic array of case studies from throughout history and around the globe. And with that, I’m off to read some more.

Link to review:http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=1121

Link to book, with no reviews:http://www.amazon.com/The-Terrorists.../dp/0691157219

[davidbfpo]

Steve Metz (SWC Member) has a short article on WPR, 'Strategic Horizons: Al-Qaida’s Resurgence, Like Its Demise, Is Greatly Exaggerated'
'
I liked this passage:

The threat today comes less from al-Qaida as an organization than from the ideas it popularized by disguising sociopathic violence with a religious veneer to appeal to the world's extensive supply of lost, disillusioned and angry young men. It is extraordinarily difficult to kill ideas. But Americans and the citizens of other nations victimized by terrorism must understand that an occasional attack, however tragic, does not demonstrate that the extremists are undergoing a revival. Violent Islamic extremism, like other forms of barbarism, will eventually fade, but it will continue to kill both Muslims and non-Muslims as it does so. Al-Qaida and its allies can murder, but they cannot manage, produce or govern. And those latter qualities are the benchmarks of a truly dangerous enemy—one that begins small and fractured and, over time, grows more organized and better able to administer and undertake centrally controlled, coordinated political and military efforts.

Al-Qaida and its affiliates are moving in the opposite direction, becoming less organized, more fractured and less able to exercise political power. Thus they are more reliant on terrorism, particularly terrorism in highly populated areas, which is more likely to get the attention the extremists so crave.

Link:http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/a...ly-exaggerated

In the very long term, yet to be seen Steve is right to say:

Violent Islamic extremism, like other forms of barbarism, will eventually fade.

Historians, one whose name escapes me, trace such violence back to at least the Indian Mutiny. Or does such violence just become part of the landscape, that we fail to notice? Before 9/11 very few of the public in the USA noted this extremism, many others countries, including some in the UK remarked "Ah, now you see what we've fought for years".

There is another article on this theme, but till tomorrow.

[davidbfpo]

A short CSIS paper, with some pithy comments, for example:

the new jihadi-salafists are undertaking a more strategic, grassroots effort to Islamize society while occasionally using targeted direct action, including violence, to advance their goals.

Link:http://csis.org/files/publication/13...lafism_Web.pdf

[davidbfpo]

Stephen Tankel on War on The Rocks on the apparent decline of AQ Central, with the removal of Arab leaders becoming more like AQ Pakistan. He concludes:

We should not expect al-Qaeda in Pakistan to give up entirely on transnational attack planning. But given its addition of Pakistanis at senior leader levels and its increasingly limited capabilities, we should expect a continued growing focus on the insurgency in Pakistan and possibly on striking foreign targets in India. Regionally, that has important implications for U.S. counterterrorism practices in South Asia. Globally, it means that AQAP is not simply the most lethal arm of al-Qaeda, but also increasingly its center of gravity in terms of leadership and coordination.

Link:http://warontherocks.com/2013/10/goi...n-of-al-qaeda/