(The blog formerly known as) All Things Counter Terrorism

Ok I promised a follow on post from Vahid’s excellent post about reactions to the Taliban’s recent statement. So here it is.

I’m stretched for time so it’s going to be raw form rather than the more considered post I had hoped to write. I hope you can bear with my off the top of my head blatherings.

First hats off to Vahid for picking up on this.

I went back and took at look at the Maqdisi post in Faloja forums. This appears to be the origin of the post, but I haven’t finished checking yet so I could be wrong. However, if it is the  origin of the post this is interesting for a few reasons. The post was not made sticky and kept up top of the forum for mass attention. It wasn’t posted by senior people and it really didn’t get that much readership (or comment)  on faloja or compared to the posting by Ahmad Badawi on the muslm forum which generated a lot more discussion. The reasons for this are the very different audiences and currents present on each site.

But what strikes me even more is that the Maqdisi response posted to his own website tawhed.ws, was lifted from the faloja forums. This is quite odd.  I’m still pondering what that means in terms of the links of the tawhed.ws website. The language of Maqdisi’s letter was also different to those he has written recently to the Chechen resistance.  Which does make me wonder about credibility, but also if it was rushed.

The response on muslm net was also interesting in terms of who posted. The usual culprits making the usual arguments. The tone of their discussion however is the best indicator of how al Qaeda will deal with it. The hisba forum has a different dynamic and those posting are mostly junior members whose posts would not be tolerated on some of the other forums because of the perceived disrespect asking such questions as splits between Zawahiri and OBL etc would cause. Comments like the ones in their discussion threads would get them promptly booted off faloja or the posts taken down.

It’s quite interesting all the dynamics of who is posting and where. What strikes me is that the mulsm forum and the faloja forum pretty much stopped discussing this around ten days ago. Am toying with the *why* question as I type this. I can’t remember if Hisba stopped. I don’t think they did. But the mulsm net posting stopping has me very curious why has it suddenly become a non-issue. I suspect this is because this is when more statements from the Taliban came out. I’ll have to check the dates on this to be sure. But if it was then it would make sense and it would also show it was not a mistake and that this is the Taliban’s position – like it or lump it.

In terms of the impact of the statement on the Taliban…

Maqdisi’s stature among the Taliban has never been strong. He along with others was among the earlier vocal critics of the Taliban because of his extreme views about Tawhid and other aspects of doctrine he believed that Taliban had failed to follow appropriately.  While others such as Sheikh Issa who was based in Afghanistan /Pakistan did to a certain extent “come around” to see the Taliban in a different light ( prompted by threats of force by other groups in Afghanistan), the Taliban does not follow religious figures from the Middle East. They take their advice mostly from Afghan and Pakistani religious figures in the first instance. So Maqdisi’s criticisms while vocal will do little to put the Taliban off their current strategy.

In fact, it seems to have done nothing. Witness the new Taliban magazine with some of the statements at issue re-published. The Taliban won’t buckle. It doesn’t have to. Maqdisi can complain all he likes, but it will have very little effect. Al Qaeda hasn’t yet decided how it will handle this and has not put anything out specifically addressing this issue, or which can be traced to this time frame. But unless they do specifically acknowledge it, which I’m not sure they will, it can be difficult to detect. Which brings me to a point…

One issue with looking at Sahaab releases is the date and context in which they were made.  Zawahiri’s eulogy of Mehsud, and discussion of the Palestinian/Hamas issue was not in response to this issue. Rather he was seeking to bolster al Qaeda’s position after Mustafa Yazid made his unauthorised remarks during his June Al Jazeera interview, which he recanted just before Zawahiri made this tape and presumably under serious pressure from al Qaeda to do so.  As I said earlier I bet Yazid got a big smack for these comments and others he made in this tape which totally contradicted al Qaeda’s position or more accurately Zawahiri’s position ( and I don’t need to go into how much of a micromanager he is). I’ve written about some of this in the context of Abu Walid al Masri’s criticisms of Yazid’s comments where he also publicly undermined Mullah Omar. Zawahiri’s references to Palestine and Hamas were aimed at ensuring that his position and not Yazid’s was seen as al Qaeda’s official line. They were, simply put, damage control.

Likewise Yahya’s video on East Turkestan was made earlier than the Taliban’s release. It was originally part of al Qaeda’s 9/11 anniversary tape, which I wrote about earlier. Its production was rushed and this appears to have been a cut from the production. So the comments for unity were to have been part of the broader narrative about the ummah that got squished towards the end of the anniversary production. As I said earlier that tape was well below par in terms of narrative flow and story lines. It was obviously rushed and poorly edited.

While these messages definitely contradict Omar’s position they were not made in response to the Taliban’s statement. Al Qaeda may respond in time, but they’ll be having a panic on how to do so, and *who* to send out to do it.  However, they could also choose to put their head in the sand. If there were smart they would.  But the thing with the takfiri element generally and also within AQ is that they are so extreme they are not smart and they often fall over themselves to criticize as they believe it is their duty to offer up advice and guidance.  But they run a real risk of tripping themselves up because Omar has the religious authority. They do not.  They also have the added problem that bin Laden has in the past called for truces so they have to tread VERY carefully.

The key point here is that the Taliban does not need al Qaeda for its religious legitimacy, nor has it ever sought this legitimacy from al Qaeda. The Taliban doesn’t need al Qaeda full stop. Al Qaeda however, needs the Taliban. And the Taliban’s actions (and the re-emergence of Abu Walid al Masri) have put it in a real bind. Although bin Laden has never given a personal oath to Omar he has presented himself as if he has, and al Qaeda by implication is tied to this allegiance. Al Qaeda’s senior leadership therefore cannot come out like Maqdisi has done, because of how they have presented themselves and how this would contradict the doctrines surrounding how one deals with an Emir who goes astray. They can’t paint Omar as going astray. They can’t say he has fallen under misleading influences because the Taliban has always taken this position (witness it’s constitution for example).Bottom line they can’t undermine Omar without it badly damaging their own position in a number of areas.

The same goes for any serious jihadi worth their salt on the forums. I will need to take a closer look at who is posting because this will reveal a lot about how this will play out.  The reason I want to pay such careful attention to *who* posts is the same reason al Qaeda is probably holed up sweating bullets over what to do. Any jihadi worth their salt is not going to come out and directly criticise Omar — if they have taken or appear to have taken the oath or are aligned with those who have. You can’t. You’re obligated to follow your emir. Yes there are guidelines for offering  guidance but not airing dirty laundry and not disloyatly –especially not disloyalty in the face of an occupation of Islamic lands. And this is how it will be perceived. Maqdisi can issue releases like this because he has given no oath. He is renown for these little outbursts because he’s just that type of person who writes his mind and always has done. I’m not so sure others will follow him though because of the very real potential it creates for backlash -especially those who are not so outwardly takfiri.

Bottom line from my point of view. This isn’t so much about the Taliban’s position being undermined in as much as it is about Al Qaeda being in a rather large  bind. The Taliban’s constituency is solid. There is little new in what the Taliban is doing or saying, it’s just become more refined and sophisticated. However, al Qaeda has taken a distinctly takfir turn with the ascendancy of Zawahiri, Yahya and others so the Taliban’s renewed agenda of positioning itself in this way will be causing them serious concern. I’m very curious to see how it plays out and whether they do say anything.

One last thought. I’ve got a very clear idea of what bin Laden’s reaction will be. He may order radio silence so to speak on the media front. But one thing is pretty much certain. If this really does concern him either in terms of what the Taliban is doing and  how it is positioning itself (and the implications of this for al Qaeda) or the reaction of the ascendent takfiris within al Qaeda and what they’ll have to say and how they’ll react to the Taliban statements and position,  he’ll order attacks against the west. He always does when things like this go down. It’s diversionary and it forces unity. He will also calculate that a big attack against the west will cause a surge in forces in Afghanistan and this will force Omar to change his tune.

It’s what bin Laden has always done. Now he has even more reason to do so. Of course key questions… does this really bother him (probably not as much as Zawahiri, Yahya etc) and of course whether al Qaeda has the capacity for such attacks. But one thing is for sure, if it starts to look like the Taliban is going too far down this path of separating itself, he’ll do it because it has worked in the past. Whether it would work now is another million dollar question. It could backfire. Who knows. Ugh my head hurts.  I’ll try to pull something a little more considered on this a little later.