Do read “Al-Qaida’s Business Savvy Sows Uncertain Future”
JulieAnn McKellog has done a great job pulling together this piece on al-Qaeda, so make sure you visit and have a look.
And do listen to Noman Benotman for some fascinating insight and excellent analysis. Also offering some great input and analysis from a range of different perspectives are Jarret Brachman, Bruce Hoffman, Don Rassler, and Fawaz Gerges.
A big shout out to JulieAnn (@jmckellogg on twitter) for her hard work on this piece, her attention to detail and for sewing it all together so well.
Op-ed in The Australian outlining my take on Ayman al-Zawahiri’s appointment as new amir of al-Qaeda
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.
Interesting details on AQ and Taliban efforts to bring down chinook in Afghanistan – amoung other stuff I also ramble about
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.
GIMF: Class notes from Security and Intelligence Course–in English
Pic and brief blurb from the intro of the document is included below, and an active link.
I haven’t read it yet but will try to have a read and post some more a little later tonight.
This English translation is a summarized version from the original Course conducted by Mujahideen in Urdu language. This course is designed primarily for brothers who will be working in high risk areas. The course focuses on both Security and Intelligence. Since our main goal is to provide brothers with an idea of Security we decided omit a lot of details which were focused purely on Intelligence.
The main basis of the original Course, was taken from a Pakistani intelligence manual. Hence some of the topics are focused to such an environment as Pakistan. But still this remained as the basis of almost all the Security and Intelligence courses which are given in Khurasaan, whether in Urdu Pashto or Arabic.
That being said, Security policies are something which changes radically, depending on Countries, Cities and current state of affairs. It even varies from person to person. Hence it is impossible to provide a wide scale Security course.
As said, our intention of Publishing an English version of this Course, is to provide “basic Principles of Security” for working brothers in America, Europe and elsewhere, by which they can initiate their own local rules and standards.
Mullah Krekar interview released
This is interesting. I’ve been very much out of the loop in relation to this gent, so I may have missed other released materials, but I don’t recollect hearing anything of him recently. For those not aware, he was the founder of Ansar al-Islam.
You can find it here http://www.archive.org/download/krekar_01.mp3/krekar_01.mp3
Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s brother (re?)joins the jihad
Salah al-Din, reportedly, a brother of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi ( a senior jihadi ideologue) has up and (re?) joined the jihad. Runs in the family, it seems. Source below pics.
http://www.as-ansar.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41327
Photos from IMU training camp in Pakistan, apparently
I found these photos of an apparent IMU training camp named after the now deceased Abu Abdullah on my wander through the internet tonight, because well that’s what one does on a Saturday night. I don’t know the date of these photos or the location, other than it being an IMU camp somewhere in Pakistan, apparently. So, if anyone who can read Uzbek wants to fill in the details from the original source of the photos I’ll be happy to add (link to original source is after photos).
But they’re interesting so I thought I’d post them for those whose net access etc prevents them looking on these sites. It’s hard to comment on some aspects because of a lack of knowledge about where or when then these photos were taken, but a few things were of interest to me. First the IED photos are interesting.
There looks to be two separate lessons areas, one of which has a covering of some sort. At least the IMU is smart enough to camouflage it, which you can see on the top of a few pics. Al Qaeda used white tents when based in Afghanistan. Even after airstrikes. And bin Laden used to personally choose the areas for camps, which caused some chagrin among those with more experience (and arguably common sense) because of his proclivity to choose exposed areas, coupled with white tents. I kid you not. I’m guessing that practice stopped pretty quickly once AQ left Afghanistan and he was out of the operational picture.
But back to the IMU pics, aside from the two ‘class’ teaching areas, there appears to be at least three areas for whatever you military people call scenario training. And with homemade flags of the countries they are targeting, by the looks of it. But I’ll leave it at that and let the rest of you take a look and offer comment. I’m sure some of you will have comments on the weapons etc and are better placed than me to point out what is what.
As a little aside, these pics show a lot more organisation and general ‘neatness’ than the pics we were treated to from Abu Khabab al Masri’s little training ‘centre’. But that was mostly in a small compound, this is not. Curious as to where these guys are sleeping when doing their training.
If you click on each pic it *should* come up larger in a separate window, I hope.
Link for the original source is here http://furqon.com/Maqolalar/ta’limgoh.html
U.S. seeks help from Egypt in recapturing terrorists at large
This is an interesting piece. I do hope, however, those pursuing this policy are thinking strategically about the implications of this. Sadly, I doubt it.
The Obama administration is engaged in a quiet and largely fruitless effort to persuade Egypt’s security services to arrest scores of terrorists who were released or escaped from prisons during the country’s recent revolution.
The issue has been raised at high levels since March, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the sensitive diplomacy.
Daniel Benjamin, U.S. ambassador at large for counterterrorism, last month provided the military council in charge of Egypt, led by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, with a list of about two dozen terrorists thought to be at large.
“I can’t go into intelligence and law enforcement activities, but I am quite sure we have voiced our concern about some of the people who are out and about,” Mr. Benjamin said after a speech in Washington and before he left for Egypt.
My thoughts on al-Qaeda after Osama
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.
Two new items
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.