Chapter Three: Ending Al-Qaeda

Abstract

Like all other terrorist movements, al-Qaeda will end. While it has traits that exploit and reflect the current international context, it is not utterly without precedent: some aspects of al-Qaeda are unusual, but many are not. Terrorist groups end according to recognisable patterns that have persisted for centuries, and they reflect, among other factors, the counter-terrorist policies taken against them. It makes sense to formulate those policies with a specific image of an end in mind. Understanding how terrorism ends is the best way to avoid being manipulated by the tactic. There is vast historical experience with the decline and ending of terrorist campaigns, yet few policymakers are familiar with it. This paper first explains five typical strategies of terrorism and why Western thinkers fail to grasp them. It then describes historical patterns in ending terrorism to suggest how insights from that history can lay a foundation for more effective counter-strategies. Finally, it extracts policy prescriptions specifically relevant to ending the campaign of al-Qaeda and its associates, moving towards a post al-Qaeda world.

Notes

1. See Chapter 2, note 41.

2. For an interesting dissection of al-Qaeda's aims, see Max Abrahms, ‘Al Qaeda's Scorecard: A Progress Report on Al Qaeda's Objectives’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 29, no. 5, August 2006, pp. 509–29.

3. Among them is Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror (Washington DC: Brassey's, 2004).

4. For an excellent discussion of this question, see Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror (London: I.B. Taurus, 2003), pp. 13–17. Bruce Hoffman divides the organisation into four elements: al-Qaeda central; al-Qaeda affiliates and associates; al-Qaeda locals; and the al-Qaeda home-grown network. See Hoffman, ‘Challenges for the US Special Operations Command Posed By the Global Terrorist Threat: Al Qaeda on the Run or on the March?’, written testimony submitted to the House Armed Services Committee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities of the US Congress, 14 February 2007.

5. ‘If a Muslim is in Britain and doesn't want to leave his job or university and go and fight Jihad on the front, what he can do is call the press agency and tell them, “I'm from the global Islamic resistance” and claim responsibility for whatever action is being done around the world.’ August 2000 training video, seized in 2006, cited by Paul Cruickshank and Mohanna Hage Ali, ‘Abu Musab Al Suri: Architect of the New Al Qaeda’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 30, no. 1, January-February 2007, p. 8.

6. Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting A Shadow of Terror, p. 39 and pp. 126–33. See also Angel Rabasa et al., Beyond al-Qaeda, Part 1: The Global Jihadist Movement (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2006), pp. 7–22.

7. Zawahiri himself realises the danger of negotiations for the movement. ‘If I fall as a martyr in the defense of Islam, my son Muhammad will avenge me, but if I am finished politically and I spend my time arguing with governments about some partial solutions, what will motivate my son to take up my weapons after I have sold these weapons in the bargains’ market?’ Laura Mansfield (trans.), His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr Ayman al Zawahiri, Part 1, ‘Knights Under the Prophet's Banner’ (TLG Publications, 2006), p. 128.

8. This is a discourse that is regrettably advanced by those in the West who speak of a ‘clash of civilisations’.

9. Of course there is benefit in fighting the ideas at the core of the movement; however, clumsy efforts to ‘empower moderates’ often result in getting them killed. A more subtle approach of demystifying al-Qaeda, drawing attention to its ample mistakes, becoming much more familiar with internal schisms and pointing out inconsistencies in the debates among its associates would be more effective. Compare Rabasa et al., Beyond al-Qaeda, Part 1, especially the section ‘Attack the Ideology’, pp. 160–61. See also Fred Burton, ‘The Quiet Campaign Against Al Qaeda's Local Nodes’, STRATFOR, 20 June 2007, http://www.stratfor.com: ‘[I]t is important to remember that this is not so much a war against a group of individuals as it is a war against an ideology. The problem is, ideologies are harder to kill than people. Consider, for example, how the revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Che Guevara have outlived the men themselves.’

10. Mansfield (trans.), ‘Knights Under the Prophet's Banner’, p. 111. Zawahiri is referring to the Islamist movement in Egypt.

11. Radical splinter groups have been common in Islam, beginning with the Kharijites who assassinated Ali, the fourth caliph, in Iraq in the seventh century. There is a long tradition of messianic young men giving their lives for the sake of a purer Islam. Robert F. Worth, ‘Al-Qaeda's Inner Circle’, New York Review of Books, vol. 53, no. 16, 19 October 2006, http://nybooks.com/articles/19433?email.

12. This point is very effectively developed by Philip H. Gordon, ‘Winning the Right War’, Survival, vol. 49, no, 4, Winter 2007, pp. 17–46, esp. p. 30.

13. Michael Scheuer provides a useful list of 40 groups that have announced their formation and pledged allegiance to bin Laden, al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda's strategic objectives since January 2005. See ‘Al-Qaeda and Algeria's GSPC: Part of a Much Bigger Picture’, Terrorism Focus, The Jamestown Foundation, vol. 4, no. 8, 3 April 2007.

14. For example, a 12 July 2007 communiqué issued by the new US State Department Counterterrorism Communications Center asked those who felt that any terrorist group was successfully perpetuating its message to let the Center know so that it could counter it. This point is also very well made by Burke, Al Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, p. 25.

15. Al-Rashid was born ‘Abd al-'Aziz b. Rashid b. Hamdan al-'Anzi, but is better known as ‘Abd allah b. Nasir al-Rashid. Currently in prison in Saudi Arabia, al-Rashid has been called ‘a central shaper of contemporary jihadi discourse’. See William McCants and Jarret Brachman, Militant Ideology Atlas: Research Compendium (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, November 2006), pp. 54–6.

16. See Rita Katz and Josh Deven, ‘Franchising Al Qaeda’, The Boston Globe, 22 June 2007, http://www.boston.com.

17. Jason Burke, ‘Think Again: Al Qaeda’, Foreign Policy, no. 142, May-June 2004, pp. 18–26.

18. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale Note Bene edition, 2001), p. 130.

19. It should be noted that many of the so-called ‘Afghan Arabs’ were neither Afghani nor Arab. One of bin Laden's contributions to the cause during the war against the Soviets was to pay rent for a building at 38 Syed Jamal al-Din Road in Peshawar, which was used as a neutral ground for talks among the bickering factions. Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, p. 76 and fn. 32. Burke cites an interview with a former Hizbe- Islami activist in Peshawar in October 2001. See also Rashid, Taliban, pp. 128–49.

20. Public-opinion polls in the Muslim world demonstrate a correlation between levels of public support for terrorism and a perceived US threat to Islam. See Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, ‘Correlates of Public Support for Terrorism in the Muslim World’, United States Institute of Peace Working Paper-1, 17 May 2007, www.usip.org, p. 8.

21. McCants and Brachman, Militant Ideology Atlas: Executive Report, p. 9.

22. This debate occurs between Salafi Sheikhs in the so-called ‘Awakening Movement’, including Shaikh Al-Albani, Abd al-Aziz Bin Baz, Salim al-Hilali and Rabee Madkhalee, on the one hand, and Zawahiri and other followers of Qutb (‘Qutubis’) on the other. See Harmony document AFGP-2002–601041, quoted and translated in Joe Felter et al., Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting Al-Qa'ida's Organizational Vulnerabilities, Combating Terrorism Center (New York: US Military Academy, 14 February 2006), pp. 53–4.

23. McCants and Brachman, Militant Ideology Atlas: Executive Report, p. 9.

24. Jarret Brachman, ‘Abu Yahya's Six Easy Steps for Defeating Al-Qaeda’, Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 1, no. 5, 2007, http://www.terrorismanalysts.com.

25. All of these points have been translated and analysed in the excellent McCants and Brachman, Militant Ideology Atlas: Research Compendium, November 2006.

26. Abu Musab Al Suri's real name is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, sometimes shortened to Setmariam. The videotapes, dated August 2000, were recovered from Afghanistan in 2006. See Cruickshank and Ali, ‘Abu Musab Al Suri’, pp. 1–14.

27. Some very fine work is being done in English in analysing these debates, notably at the Counterterrorism Center at West Point, which has for example tapped al-Qaeda's library of over 3,000 books and articles written by major movement authors, translated and analysed them, and made them available to Western researchers. This research is available at http://www.ctc.usma.edu/atlas.asp. See also Statement of Jarret Brachman before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, Hearing on Challenges Posed to the Special Operations Command by the Global Terrorist Threat, 14 February 2007.

28. See for example Cracks in the Foundation: Leadership Schisms in Al-Qaida, 1989–2006, Harmony Project, Combating Terrorism Center, West Point, September 2007, http://ctc.usma.edu.

29. This is wisely recommended in Combating Terrorism Center's Harmony and Disharmony, p. 43.

30. This was the case with the pentiti of the Italian Red Brigades and the ‘supergrasses’ of the Provisional IRA, for example.

31. Rightly or wrongly, public perception in many parts of the Muslim world was united as a result of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prison debacles. Any benefit gained from interrogation of those prisoners has been dwarfed many times over by the propaganda coup handed to al-Qaeda.

32. David J. Kilcullen, ‘Subversion and Countersubversion in the Campaign against Terrorism in Europe’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 30, no. 8, August 2007, pp. 647–66.

33. Ibid., p. 661.

34. ‘Knights Under the Prophet's Banner’, pp. 102–105.

35. Lawrence Wright, ‘The Man Behind Bin Laden’, The New Yorker, 16 September 2002; and Wright, The Looming Tower, pp. 210–12. See also Jarret M. Brachman and William F. McCants, ‘Stealing Al-Qaeda's Playbook’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 29, no. 4, June 2006, pp. 309–21.

36. The 12 October 2002 attacks in the entertainment district of Kuta Beach killed 202 people and injured more than 200, mostly tourists. 38 of those killed were Indonesian. The attacks were orchestrated by Jemaah Islamiah, a group linked to al-Qaeda. A spokesman for al-Qaeda also claimed credit.

37. The Riyadh attacks of 12 May 2003 involved four simultaneous bombings, carried out by al-Qaeda. The majority of the casualties were Westerners, although a large number of Arab Muslims were also killed. See MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, at http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=20353.

38. Two simultaneous bombings were carried out by a Turkish al-Qaeda cell; 28 people were killed and 450 injured. See MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=17488.

39. In all 191 people were killed and more than 600 injured in the attacks on Madrid's transport system. The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade claimed responsibility on behalf of al-Qaeda. See MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=18518.

40. See MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=16033 and http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=17375.

41. Those attacks also resulted in mass marches and shouts of ‘Burn in hell Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!’. Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia was ultimately forced to admit that the Muslim deaths were accidental, and claimed that the group would never target innocent Muslims. Its third communiqué read as follows: ‘As for the Muslims who were killed in this operation, we beseech Allah to have mercy on them and forgive them, and swear that they were not the [intended] target of the operation. We did not intend, and would never have intended for a moment, to harm them, even had they been infidels. This, assuming they were [really] in the area of the attack. The brothers who carried out the martyrdom operation meant to target the halls which served as meeting places for intelligence officers of several infidel Crusader countries and countries allied with them. The people [at the wedding feast] were killed because part of the ceiling collapsed from the intensity of the blast, and it is no secret that this was not intended; it was an unintended accident, which had not been taken into account.’ See http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=jihad&ID=SP104305.

42. Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi, 11 October 2005, translated in Mansfield, His Own Words, pp. 268 and 271.

43. Ibid., p. 273.

44. Pew Global Attitudes Project, ‘Dwindling Muslim Support for Terrorism’, Global Opinion Trends 2002–2007 Report, 24 July 2007, p. 7, http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/257.pdf. See also Max Abrahms, ‘Why Terrorism Does Not Work’, International Security, vol. 31, no. 2, Autumn 2006, p. 76.

45. ‘Dwindling Muslim Support for Terrorism’.

46. Jack Kalpakian, ‘Building the Human Bomb: The Case of the 16 May 2003 Attacks in Casablanca’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 28, no. 2, 2005, pp. 113–28.

47. Abrahms, ‘Why Terrorism Does Not Work’, p. 67.

48. Abu Yahya points out that both the Saudi and Algerian governments successfully characterised jihadist attacks in their countries as strikes not against government targets but against the people.

49. The percentage figure was derived by examining the list of casualties of each of the terrorist attacks for which al-Qaeda claimed direct responsibility between February 1993 and June 2007, and inferring the religious affiliation of the victims according to their nationalities. Only fatalities were included. The numbers were drawn from the IISS Armed Conflict Database. If Western governments are ever to develop a more effective counter-mobilisation strategy in the Muslim world, they must take the perspective of the audience into better account. Keeping track of the number of Muslim victims would be a good place to start.