All Things Counter Terrorism

For those of you interested, the United States Study Centre has put up all of the audio and video from the summit it hosted last month: The 9/11 Decade. I plan to make some time to listen to some of the speeches I missed but in the meantime wanted to write a few notes about a couple of things that really stood out for me. Had been planning on doing so for a while but real life has intervened. So here it is, better late than never and consisting of my attempts to turn scrawled notes into coherent sentences in a 2am blog post.

One thing that stood out for me (at least in the sessions I saw) was the focus on China, which one could consider quite interesting given the summit was titled the 9/11 decade. But in some respects, it’s not so curious.

For those who remember back to 2000/2001, and particularly for those who were in an International Relations stream at the time, it’s all too easy to recall that before 9/11 came along and re-ordered everything, the next great big threat was China. And boy was it being hyped.  It’s forgotten now because of what came along after, but at the time there was lots of talk about the new Cold War, and then we had the Hainan Island spy plane incident in early 2001  and it was all doom and gloom forecasts from some quarters, and from others, arguments that there was not a new cold war but instead we’d all have to contend with a  multi-polar system, and a number of regional hegemons, particularly in the Asia Pacific region.

What fascinated me was to hear these things repeated again—almost word for word, a decade later, and after virtual silence on many of these topics (outside of those who specialize in the area). Of course there are a few different things now. Back in 01 the US was strong, and so the discussion was not so much centred on questions like whether the US is in terminal decline, which was an ongoing theme at the summit. So this is a new addition to the discourse and gives rather obvious pause for thought as to how the strategic consequences of the detour into using counter terrorism as an organizational pillar of International Security are going to be viewed by historians over the longer term—particularly in relation to its impact on US power & capabilities across a number of indices.  But, I digress.

Anyway, it was interesting because even those at the summit who were optimistic for America’s capacity for replenishment did seem to grudgingly accept that a change towards multipolarity is coming. I was, however, struck by those who thought that China needs containing. Not by the argument itself but rather the lack of evidence behind it—although in fairness this may be more symptomatic of limited time in sessions. What struck me even more though was the firm belief held by some (again with little behind them in terms of supporting evidence) that the United States could actually contain China.

It seems to me that as things currently stand the best anyone can realistically talk about is power balancing, rather than containment, particularly given the geopolitical realities of the region and also of other regions in which the US sees itself as having vital interests.

Speaking of China and containment, I managed to catch the last of Robert Kaplan’s session, where he was talking about blue water naval capabilities and regional dynamics in the Asia-Pacific, particularly in relation to territorial disputes and SLOC’s.  I found it interesting, although a little alarmist, but that’s just because I woke up the next morning and literally the very first thing I thought about was China, blue water navy capacity, regional instability,  and things going boom. So clearly it stuck in my mind. But I digress.

Another continuity I noticed at the summit was in relation to the complaint/argument that the International Institutions we currently have are (already) insufficient and nowhere near robust and expansive enough to deal with the range and types of situations we will face in the future.  Again, this is nothing new. But it was interesting to see this theme emerge, particularly alongside the theme of the US in a potentially terminal decline–as the last lone superpower. This tied in with another theme: the need for a greater focus on international institutions, cooperation and soft power, diplomacy etc etc. Again, none of this is new. But it has been long drowned out by the absolute militarization of counter terrorism and elevation of counter terrorism to an organizing pillar of international security.

It seemed to me that if the summit with its wide variety of speakers and attendees was any indication, then the pendulum may have finally swung back.  Maybe, just maybe, we can now move beyond the exceptionalism that has characterized the treatment of terrorism as a security threat. I only hope we do not go from one extreme to another and end up with another new cold War/China threat scenario.

“I don’t understand how somebody could buy the land for $48,000, get the building permits, get a contractor, build for a period of time what is essentially the largest home compound in the area, where somebody lives for five years, and nobody asks who’s there or finds out who’s there,” she said.

I racked up many years in Canberra, and believe me so long as OBL & family snuck in to a house in a  darkened car he could have lived undetected there too.  In fact, he could probably have wandered around in pseudo disguise without much bother since most Canberrans go out of their way to avoid eye contact or saying hello. Yes, I’m a bit bitter and twisted from my experience there, being from the much friendlier state of Qld, but in all seriousness if no one saw him go in why would they think to ask it, which was pretty much probably the whole reason he was there.

Obviously a lot of questions have to be asked as to how and why he got there, but really.

Records going missing is pretty dodgy though, if true.

Am a bit behind in posting but for those who may not have seen it, FP/NAF’s AfPak channel had a roundtable with a few of us writing down some thoughts on al-Zawahiri’s appointment as amir.

You can find it here http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/06/16/the_zawahiri_era_begins

I also spoke with The Takeaway recently on what the future holds for al Qaeda, which you can find here

http://www.thetakeaway.org/2011/jun/17/what-does-the-future-of-al-qaida-look-like/

There’s more to come in the next little while as I slowly make my way through my list of things to write about either in article form, or here on the blog.

You can find the piece here.

I’ve also written another two articles, which I hope are coming out soon. And will post the details on once they are released, although I don’t know if one has been accepted yet. In any event, I’ll post it here if I don’t get a taker on it.

Another blog post will also follow soon on the interim amir speculation. And I still need to update my earlier posts with the interesting data readers have sent in about the photos. Hoping to get to that later today but since I haven’t slept yet I’ll see how I go on that front. In any case I’ll get to it as soon as I can.

There is some truly fascinating material floating around on the forums at the moment. Maybe it’s because I’m only just starting to get back looking at this stuff in more depth than my usual daily hour or two wander through the internets. But there’s a lot of movement afoot in quite a few different areas.

And rather curiously there seems to be a lot of reporting on al-Sham operatives in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan.

This could just be because clearly one of them is on active on the forums at the moment and pushing out some stuff.

Some of it is old, like the martrdom of the Jordanian born  (or Jordanian citizen if memory serves?) Palestinian Mahmud Abu Rida (see here for a useful summary on this guy by Florian Flade http://ojihad.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/the-story-of-mahmoud-abu-rida/)

Short version he was UK based for many years, jailed at Belmarsh, under a control order ( I think) and then ended up in Afghanistan, where he was reported killed late last year. He had longstanding links to AQ, with some reporting suggesting that he was the person to who al-Zawahiri tasked distributing his book–although to my knowledge this has never been confirmed.

What is interesting is that there is some new information that has appeared about how he died and what he was involved in as well as some photos. Curiously, this detail was released by the same gent who put out the pictures of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s brother I posted on a few days ago.

You can find the new account of Mahmud Abu Rida and pictures on an open forum here http://www.paldf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=824555

This account confirms Mahmud Abu Rida was AQ (no surprises there) but it also  intimates that As Sahab may do something on him later. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does, since the propaganda value of  Mahmud Abu Rida is high, given his background and detention in the UK etc. He also reportedly asked for a martyrdom operation and the way he died would from AQ’s view give it a new spin on martydom ops.

It is interesting that the photos and details have taken a while to surface (or have I missed them earlier?)

Anyway, this posting  claims Mahmud Abu Rida was killed in an operation to bring down a US chinook (at least I think it was chinook), in which four Turkish militants also participated (if I am understanding this correctly)

Some other interesting details (and please correct me if I am wrong) but according to this the Taliban and al Qaeda had a join unit to hunt planes.  Maybe someone can match up the details with known crashes or strikes on aircraft?  I was up to my eyeballs in thesis last year time so I missed a bit of news. Anyway, according to this account villagers complained and so the militants organised an operation. Presumably this is where the Taliban fits in, since the account places Mahmud Abu Rida and four Turkish brothers as the ones who carried out the operation.  Although it does say that the Taliban militants tried to attract the Americans by talking on their cellphone, and when that did not work Mahmud Abu Rida got on the phone and started talking Arabic. Not sure about this in terms of credibility, but nonetheless it is interesting. It has some details about what weapons were used but I’m not well versed in that stuff, more the IED side of things so I’ll leave that to someone else to write about. Anyway according to this the attack caused the aircraft to crash land and then more aircraft came and those who perpetrated the attack were killed. The account highlights that the militants carried out this attack with relatively rudimentary weapons, and seems keen to reinforce this point. Again, I’m not great on weapons so will leave that to someone else to write about in terms of veracity.

So, anyway, my take away from this, among other things,  which is not new, but nonetheless interesting, is that there allegedly exists a special unit tasked with trying to bring down aircraft. And that they’re claiming a success.

More interesting to me, however, is that whoever is posting this or passing it to the person posting (but I think it is the former rather than the latter) clearly has significant links, at some level and degree into AQ media/op nexus. He has operational details, awareness of unit sections and photos as well as knowledge of  media plans so it seems.  Intriguing–especially given the very old old school links in al-Sham networks that are becoming a little more visible in OS material like this of late. He also carries authority in terms of his postings, so I’m following all of this with great interest.

Anyway, these are the photos of Mahmud Abu Rida he provided, allegedly from an AQ training camp and cropped for security reasons.

UPDATE: Thanks very much to a valued reader in N America for providing the following information on the photos.

The first picture was taken around 28 Feb 2010.  The second one was taken on 19 Feb 2010 but modified on 10 April 2011.

Also interesting is that the same forum poster who put up this information has in the past day or two also released  an announcement of the martyrdom in Afghanistan of a senior Jordanian operative, Abu Thar/Zar, which has no date. So I’m not sure if this is related either by unit or event or network or pedigree, or just selling the al-Sham aspect in the forums  or if it is even related at all. He is hitting up pretty heavily the lions of tawhid narrative, but that could just as easily be in relation to Afghanistan as to the al-Sham angle; I’ve seen it used for both.

Anyway, there are pictures to follow in another posting or announcement presumably.  This name is of interest to me, since it rings a bell from a long time ago, both in terms of internet forums and real world stuff. The post acknowledges his role in old school forums,  but I’ll have to do some more digging to see if it is the person I am thinking of who was involved in  training related activities and had real world links via this. If it who I think it is,  he also had some links to old school AQAP folks and AQ external operations folks too, and handed out some fairly detailed guidance on how to do surveillance etc circa 02-04, if memory serves, but I digress. Anyway, you can read more about this here http://www.aljahad.com/vb/showthread.php?p=19911

Lastly, for reasons I’m not inclined to expand upon I think if one digs deep enough one would find that the gent posting all this stuff  would show links to Abu Dujana al Khurasani (who was the AQ suicide bomber who struck the CIA base in late 2009) among other people…

So anyway, I just found all that quite interesting, particularly in terms of what it shows about AQ unit set ups, nationalities and involvement in various areas and the discrete movements in relation to this, as well as  the nexus between media and ops and of course the AQ Taliban cooperation outlined in his report of Mahmud Abu Rida’s death.

As an aside also in relation to stuff on the forums:

There’s a quite a few old school names popping up again.

There’s some new manhaj related material on the way.

There’s a new edition of the mujahid’s book bag released ( I tweeted the link earlier http://www.archive.org/details/Haqeeba3  you’ll also maybe need to download extra fonts http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CANPC0O5 ) So we’re now up to edition three. All 1.5 gigs of it.

And there’s something apparently coming from AQ soon.

Coffee time for me now. More to come later. Thanks for the folks sending in info in relation to IMU post, I will get around to posting that a little later, and will also try to plough through the security manual.

Folks if you are interested, the following link has a podcast of an interview I had with Ron Sutton of SBS on my thoughts on al-Qaeda after Osama. This interview was done on the sidelines of the 2011 National Summit, The 9/11 Decade, which was put on by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

I’d like to thank the Centre for their invitation to speak and to congratulate them on a truly excellent summit.

I am so glad to read this opinion piece by John McCain against the use of torture.

It is about time someone called out those attempting to exploit bin Laden’s death to  justify torture, and show them to be shameful, and outright misleading.

Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture – The Washington Post.

This jumped out at me in relation to the recent bombings in Morocco.

“The individuals were absorbed by jihadist ideology, and had allegiance to al Qaeda and had already made several attempts to join some of the hotbeds of tension, especially Chechnya and Iraq, before deciding to carry out terror in the homeland,” the ministry statement said, according to MAP.

Time and time and time and time again you see this. Frustrated ambitions to go and fight and when this doesn’t materialise turning the focus inward. It’s a big problem for several reasons. First, if you do as we do here, and take away people’s right to travel if this intention is known, you cause this process to accelerate and then need to dedicate more resources to monitoring those folks.  Second, leaving it go, and not actively intercepting runs the risk of volunteers being diverted by groups they come into contact with, which is how AQ gets most of its recruits for external operations.  It’s a big headache for those in CT and not likely to change anytime soon.

Am sleep deprived and very short on time so this will be quick, with more to follow.

Bin Laden’s death is a symbolic victory but for the folks in counter terrorism nothing much changes. In fact their life just got a whole lot busier.

Expect maybe some more raids, strikes etc depending on what intelligence was gathered; not only from the strikes but also from monitoring of those in the immediate network.

To get this type of info a much broader network would have been monitored.

As for AQ.

It’s leadership will go to ground and close ranks while they try to protect themselves and ascertain the degree of damage to their comms channels and other elements of operational security.

External operations (AQ’s attacks against the west) are not likely to be impacted. OBL really only got involved in ops planning to approve spectaculars, particularly those using a new means of attack or against a new target. Second tier leaders deal with external operations for the most part.  Aside from communications disruptions (which do little to disrupt those already deployed) this section will continue on business as usual.

Leadership will automatically pass to the second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. If he goes too, then the position goes to the head of the command council, or potentially the head of AQ’s shariah council, although this is a more informal body.  It’s unlikely to go to a vote in the short term due to operational requirements.

AQ’s branch and franchises will stay on board.

As for retributive attacks,  AQ is unlikely to waste operatives on hasty retaliation.  It will incite others to do so, but it’s own efforts will come later.  AQAP may not be so pragmatic and it already has permission to carry out attacks against the west.

Anyway, that’s just my first thoughts.

More later.

This little snippet from the MOD report, as covered by The Guardian, caught my eye, particularly in light of Abu al-Walid al-Masri and Sayf al-Adl’s dialogue and the discussions currently going on within AQ about targeting strategies.

The insurgents “gain every time a mistake is made”, enabling them to cast themselves “in the role of underdog and the west as a cowardly bully that is unwilling to risk his own troops, but is happy to kill remotely”, the report adds.

This raises a very important point that I don’t feel is adequately addressed in debates about the effectiveness of using drones, and in particular, the unintended consequences of their use. So below are my sleep deprived, off the top of my head thoughts about the issue.

I’m adding this to the pile of things I hope to write about in a more considered way next month, when I am finally free of the thesis. YAY! Well I’m actually free of it next week, but need a small break before leaping into writing again.  In the meantime, here goes with the sleep deprived thinking out loud, off the top of my head effort….

Using drones does exactly as this report notes; it allows the presentation of a narrative that the west is unwilling to risk troops but will kill remotely.  There is a lot of talk about how the use of drones plays into radicalisation, but very little talk about how this feeds into AQ’s ability to ‘sell’ to other groups its external operations and targeting of citizens away from the battlefield, and the operational implications of this.

I’m not talking here about radicalisation at the grassroots level inasmuch as I am about AQ’s standing with other groups, how it interacts with them, how it influences (or not) their targeting strategies, and how it deals with criticism of its MO of targeting civilians off the battlefield.

In other words, in all of the talk about drones and their effectiveness, there has been a failure to address or consider that the west’s use of drones gives AQ an ‘out’ when encountering criticism of its MO from within its own milieu, and allows it to militate against such criticism—by using the argument noted by the report.

But more importantly, I haven’t seen any studies that look into the potential consequences of the use of drones in terms of empowering AQ to advertise its MO, and encourage others to use the same strategy (and here radicalisation of grassroots groups and what MO they adopt if they operationalise does come into it).

I think serious attention needs to paid as to whether a sustained use of drones could see the strategy of external attacks against civilians off the battlefield become the dominant tactic in the militant salafist milieu.

And here I’d note that it currently is not. Not all groups agree with AQ about targeting civilians off the battlefield, some even within AQ may not agree with how its targeting has evolved (as we are seeing in the various debates and releases at the moment). After all, most who are radicalised still want to go off and fight armed jihad. What do they do if there are no soldiers? So there are very real implications on relying on remote warfare to combat external operations by AQ, namely that has a very real potential to  drive an increase in this MO as a means of hitting back at the west in a reciprocal manner. I don’t know what the answer is to this, but I do know that the consequences of using drones as a substitute have not been adequately addressed.

At a time when AQ’s external operations are coming into question through various international events and internal discussions (both within the group and the broader milieu) serious thought needs to be given as to how using drones might allow AQ breathing room, because it adds to the justification of external operations as a way of evening the battlefield. In other words, AQ can justify, in a cloak of legitimacy, external operations as its own reciprocal form of ‘remote’ warfare.

This has implications for not only radicalisation but also the operational uptake of the MO across a broader swathe of groups, particularly if the MO is sanctioned by new fatawa.

Following on from this, there has been no consideration as to whether the use of drones is going to drive (or has driven?) stronger ‘shariah’ justifications  from within the militant salafist milieu for the use of external operations against civilian targets.  In this respect, there has been, to my knowledge, very little, if any consideration of how the west’s use of drones may in fact drive (or have driven) the issuing of a number of new fatawa, particularly since militant salafists could draw from their own exegesis of stipulations relating to reciprocity in warfare.

Of course adopting or choosing a course of action based on what the other side is going to do is not always reason enough to stop or start something, but the point I fear I am rather badly making is that these real and potential consequences of the use of drones have not been examined, and are not being addressed.

Instead, we find the ubiquitous argument that drone strikes are effective in preventing AQ from launching attacks. This is not an argument that can stand up to close scrutiny, particularly if we look at the variables that impact upon capacity, capability and planning to operationalisation dynamics. Simply put, this can not be proven, only assumed. And that assumption goes straight out the window when an attack coordinated or directed from the region takes place, or is foiled.

Here I’d also note the planning has not stopped, or the operational tempo necessarily slowed down. What has changed is that more plots are being foiled. And the role of drones in foiling plots is questionable. Law enforcement and intelligence work foil plots.  And as I noted earlier, arguing that drones have reduced capability, based on the argument that senior leaders have been taken out, or trainees killed, overlooks a number of other variables and is not something that can be easily proven.

But anyway, even assuming the argument that drones have reduced AQ’s capability and capacity is correct and verifiable ( that is, to say that AQ’s intent to attack remains, but its ability is restricted) what then if drone attacks actually drive a broader adoption of the MO of external attacks? (Here I’m thinking of the foray into external operations by the Pakistan Taliban, as a case in point.) What if fatawa are released that sanction external attacks based on the notion of reciprocity of ‘remote’ attacks?

If we consider how AQ exercises command and control via its manhaj and ideology, and then we look at a potential spread of the MO, ‘sold’ as a means of evening the battlefield and reciprocity of action, the argument for what makes drone strikes effective tends to go out the window.

Why? Because there is a diffusion of the MO, sanctioned, incorporated into strategic guidance, and not necessarily requiring the input or support (beyond broad strategic direction) of the senior leadership. I’m sure there’s an analogy for this somewhere. I just can’t think of one right now, so instead let’s move onto the counter-argument.

While the counter-argument to this is that AQ is likely to find any excuse to attack, relying solely on this argument overlooks a broader dynamic at play.  The more remote warfare is used, the more AQ’s narrative and justification is reinforced, as the above snippet from the report highlights. That means  more ‘justification’ for AQ to exercise  reciprocity of  ’remote’ attacks ( Translation: external operations against civilian targets in the west). If this is accompanied by new fatawa, which  justify external operations in this context, the MO spreads.

It spreads to grassroots groups following AQ’s manhaj and who seek to implement its strategic guidance by carrying out external operations. And it has the potential to spread to other groups.

More importantly, it weakens the position of those in the milieu who stand for jihad being restricted to the battlefield. And more importantly again, it weakens those who are trying to combat the spread of such an ideological position. This in turn has implications for combating the spread of the ‘grassroots’ phenomena and for CT prevention strategies in the west, particularly those targeted at vulnerable groups and the means used to argue against using such MO.

Whew. So there you have it. That was what went through my mind when I read that snippet. It was basically a very long winded and stream of consciousness way of saying that much more attention needs to be paid the consequences of using drones, particularly over the long term. It may seem like an attractive solution, and it’s all fine and good to talk about how effective they are, but if you’re not considering these consequences I don’t see how you can make that argument.

Update: thanks for @azelin for pointing out spelling error, perils of writing while tired.