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Al-Qaeda may be starting its own surge
In the past week followers of Al-Qaeda have launched vicious attacks despite Ramadan on key fronts - Pakistan, Yemen, and Mauritania. These events occurred just after intelligence officials said that the Al-Qaeda threat remains despite reports of "imploding" and US President George W. Bush's announcements concerning a renewed focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda may be starting its own surge; strikes in Europe and the US cannot be ruled out as a strategic distraction may be taken place from West Africa to South Asia. Al-Qaeda Launches Strategic Chaos Despite a spate of articles concerning Al-Qaeda's demise due to ideological disputes, criticism from key Sunni clerics, and the loss of public sympathy, the movement is not waning. It was almost exactly 20 years ago this month that Al-Qaeda was born in Afghanistan as a movement of violent jihadis that was prepared to fight and die to protect the Islamic umma, or community, from foreign assault. To this day the movement still discusses defensive jihad, puritanical interpretations of religious doctrine, and the use of various tactics, techniques and procedures to achieve goals. Now Al-Qaeda affiliates may be applying strategic chaos to destabilize various countries and create new battle fronts. Pakistan In Pakistan, specifically from the tribal areas of Waziristan, Al-Qaeda appears to be endangering the new Pakistani government through terrorist attacks - such as the Marriott bombing that killed dozens at the start of the iftar meal - is meant to further destabilize the state thereby triggering a crisis between Washington and Islamabad. Al-Qaeda knows what it is doing and announced it would do so before this Ramadan. On August 10, 2008, Ayman al-Zawahri, speaking in English for the first time on As-Sahab Media, called for the Pakistani Army and people "to rise up." The Marriott bombing itself, in terms of targeting, destroyed a well-known land mark in the capital where foreigners and Pakistanis meet to conduct business. Moreover, Al-Qaeda hit hard in the city's center in the vicinity of the Parliament where the new president, Aif Ali Zardari, just finished his acceptance speech targeting Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and rejecting American military intervention on Pakistani soil. More spectacular bombings and possibly assassinations are likely. Ultimately, a rise in violence against the Pakistani government and a further collapse of the state to function may force another armed intervention by the United States. Unlike Iraq, however, the US will face a different type of battle space - one in which a large recruitment base of young, madrasa-trained, politically marginalized Pakistanis already exists. And the United States will come fast because of Pakistan's nuclear weapons inventory; Al-Qaeda may be seeking to draw the US into a trap. Yemen In Yemen, the attack on the US Embassy, leaving 16 people dead and the largest attack since September 11, 2001, against a US facility outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, shows how ungovernable the country really is as a result of the evolving extremist threat. The government appears to be unable to successfully interrupt the Yemeni cells to conduct operations against targets. In past attacks against the US Embassy, the operations were immature with unsophisticated tactics. The latest attack was a marked changed clearly influenced by the battlefields of Iraq and/or Somalia - the use of two car bombs, RPGs, gunmen dressed as local police, and automatic weapons. After the attack, the statement by the Organization for Islamic Jihad stated that other targets on the group's hit-list include the diplomatic facilities of Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This fact signals specifically a further escalation and expansion of targeting. Even before the attack on the US Embassy, another Yemeni group, Soldiers of the Yemen Brigades, repeatedly attacked oil facilities. On June 30, the group took credit for rocket attacks against an oil refinery in Safir, located east of the capital Sanaa, in Maarib Province. The group later posted video footage of the attack on a radical Islamist Web site. The attack represented the latest in a series of strikes against oil infrastructure and personnel in Yemen over the last year by militants tied to Al-Qaeda, including a May 30 attack against an oil refinery in the port city of Aden. Overall, destabilizing Yemen is a key strategic goal of Al-Qaeda because the state lies at the crossroads between East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia - useful territory in which to possibly launch further violent attacks against neighboring states. Plans for terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia have been recently uncovered during raids in Yemen, most notably the raid in which Yemeni Al-Qaeda leader Hamza al-Qaeiti was killed in Aden. To date, nothing public has been released about the United Arab Emirates. And like in Pakistan, there is anti-American sentiment among portions of the Yemeni population. Mauritania In Mauritania, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb appears to be increasing its level of violence to challenge the new military government. The group has claimed responsibility for killing 15 Mauritanian soldiers in a 2005 raid, killing four soldiers and four French tourists in December 2007, and attacking the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania in February 2008. After the August 6, 2008, coup, the group called for a full-scale "holy war" to turn Mauritania, seen as a US ally in the global "war on terror," into an Islamic state. Now, during Ramadan, 12 Mauritanian soldiers who were abducted in an attack on their patrol by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were found decapitated in what can be seen as a powerful message to the Mauritanian government. In addition, the attacks may be seen as an extension of operations further southwards into sub-Saharan Africa which is a source of crude oil to the West. Implications for the US and its allies There are two broad implications to consider that may be forthcoming. The first is economic warfare involving the "oil weapon." Al-Qaeda seeks to inspire or launch attacks as part of a long-term strategy to bankrupt the US by engaging in a war of attrition. According to an essay titled "Al-Qaeda and the Battle for Oil" that has been circulating on radical jihadi Web sites, militants are well aware of the economics of oil. The author of the essay goes as far as to claim that Al-Qaeda's strategy to defeat the US rests on bankrupting America by driving up oil prices by any means necessary. The author also mentions that the attacks against oil infrastructure in Yemen, along with past attacks in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have been critical to Al-Qaeda's battlefield lessons learned to date so far. With the economic chaos on global markets, particularly in the US and Europe, now may be a good time to disrupt these economies further. It is important to recall that in February 2007, Al-Qaeda's Sawt al-Jihad online magazine called for attacks against Western hemisphere oil infrastructure that supports the US economy. The second implication is an attempt to manipulate the presidential race in the United States. In 2004 Al-Qaeda influenced the elections in Spain by carrying out a series of bombings on Madrid commuter trains. In the week before the 2004 American presidential election, Osama bin Laden recorded a video message to the American people promising repercussions if Bush was re-elected. In later messages, Al-Qaeda's leader claimed credit for helping re-elect Bush in 2004. By enflaming the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Yemen and Mauritania, Al-Qaeda wants to influence public opinion "behind enemy lines" and "egg on" the Obama and McCain campaigns. In addition, Al-Qaeda possibly seeks to show that US attention was minimal to a much more dangerous situation in Pakistan in contrast to America's invasion of Iraq. Overall, by using these countries as platforms, there may be more sophisticated attacks against US allies throughout South Asia, the Gulf littoral and North Africa. Strikes in Europe and even North America cannot be ruled out. The "October Surprise" may not be a confrontation with Iran - as some pundits are arguing - but Al-Qaeda confronting the West and her allies again. Theodore Karasik is director of research and development at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. Posted by: Fred 2008-09-25 |
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