Zawahiri's message is very revealing on several levels.
"First, a message of congratulations to the Muslim Ummah on the American people's admission of defeat in Iraq..."
He is either delusional of his information lieutenants are lying to him,
al Qaeda has suffered a defeat in Iraq by all measures.
He also says "It appears that you don't know anything about the Muslim Ummah and its history:"
And says: "You Are Neither Facing Individuals nor Organizations, But... a Jihadi Awakening and Renaissance... This is the Fact Which You and Your Government And Country Refuse to Recognize"
He fails to admit al Qaeda has fallen out of favor with Muslims.
"America Has Put On a New Face, But Its Heart Full of Hate, Mind Drowning In Greed, and Spirit Which Spreads Evil, Murder, Repression and Despotism...."
The reason al Qaeda is in disfavor among Muslims is evident to every one except Zawahiri.
al Qaeda has killed more Muslims, killed women,
children, bombed Mosques and market places in
violation of the Quran, al Qaeda acts for Satan
against Muslims.
Zawahiri is out of touch with reality or just trying
to spread false propaganda in a last ditch effort to
save face.
I fear he is so isolated he doesn't know the truth,
Image via WikipediaBin Laden has not been able to strike on U.S. soil since 9/11 or in Europe since the London bombings three summers ago. In Iraq, his most successful franchise operation is on the ropes. Across the Muslim world, opinion polls suggest his popularity has faded, and many of his early supporters -- including prominent jihadi ideologues -- have denounced him. Even his messages on the Internet scarcely merit headlines in the mainstream media......
According to this assessment, two decades since its founding in Peshawar, Pakistan, al-Qaeda remains a source of inspiration for certain extremists around the world. But it's far from clear that bin Laden commands them......
...a few days after bin Laden's most recent Internet postings. The officials told me they've found no evidence of al-Qaeda operations in their countries. If bin Laden has any role in the jihad, say the Europeans, it is merely as an icon. Alain Grignard, Belgium's top terrorism investigator, says bin Laden is now a "Robin Hood figure; 100 people are inspired by him, but very few respond to do what he wants."....
al Qaeda's efforts in Paki and Afghan are thier last stand so to speak, they are fast becoming irrelevant. And they are in a war of survival. Hoping to find a palace to exist, survive.
al Qaeda's top leader ship is gone, and the new leaders don't have the connections or pull of the old leaders.
We are in a mop up phase with al Qaeda and may be able to get the Taliban to deal, survival for the remaining al Qaeda leadership. The Taliban are hurting, and are experiencing some of the highest attrition rtes of mid-level management they have ever experienced, they are experiencing some relief from deserters from Iraq, but this will be short lived as they too are attrited.
This is not to say aQ isn't looking for a big punch if they get the chance.
I was out trying to take some photos of the fireflies, and watching all the lights blink on and off, it remended me of the al Qaeda hackers and webmasters.
al Qaeda's Internet paradigm is almost 180 degrees from the US Military's Internet paradigm.
aQ views the WWW as the ultimate weapon and communications channel. aQ fireflies wink on and demonstrate the new paradigm, and aQ embraces it and has a party.
In the USA the WWW is viewed like a threat or security risk. Something they would like to avoid if possible.
One of my staff was posting on a Military forum about cyber war and the use of WWW as a weapon. This was the comment emailed to Gerald.
"yeah i read the whole thing, they were a hard audience. They seemed to be more concerned with naming things and theoretical aspects of it all whilst you are a man of action gerald. Combine that with a new concept of operations, as you state gerald, and I don't think they have their heads around the actions you and the wiki are taking." A well know Blogger.
The Internet is one weapons level above WMDs. Our paradigm is classified. G It offers the potential to win a war with out violence. It's uses as "Force protection", "Force projection", and a "Force multiplier" are understood by the al Qaeda movement.
And still being discovered by US Forces.
US Forces keep the WWW at arms length away like some bad odor, while al Qaeda wears the WWW like it was cologne.
The American historical paradigm has been one of ignoring a threat until we are hit hard then America pours in resources like a tidal wave to over come the weakness.
Its cheaper and safer to dominate all domains.
The "Future of Wars Paradigm" plays heavily on the use of the Internet by the antagonist, and is Americas weakest link.
At the current time USA is unprepared and ill trained to fight in this domain. And remains so at Great risk to the country.
There needs to be something said about the failure of the Paki and Afghan cultures to bring al Qaeda and the Taliban to justice.
About the failure of thier political systems to come to grips with this cancer in their society even with Billion$ and Billion$ of USD in aid, and support of the USA Military.
Taliban and al qaeda killing Muslims, bombing Mosques, Market places, funerals, killing children women. Suicide bombings of civilians, political leaders, Government.
USA needs to set bench marks for these Governments to reach to continue to receive aid and Military support.
The people in these states have a responsibility to the rest of the world to bring the terrorist in their countrys under control, by negotiation or death. Taliban suckers Paki Gov.
Let the Taliban take over these governments, it is much eaiser to take out a state Government vs a war with insurgents, let them suffer the pains of failure to handle the GWOT problem.
USA has demonstrated its ability to strike inside a country and take out select leadership.
USA has a responsibility to protect its citizens from terrorists, and that may be easier to do if the terrorist are running the government of a state rather than dealing with a terrorist insurgency.
Pakistan has demonstrated again and again its lack of ability to come to grips with the Taliban problem. Pakistan believe they can negotiate with the Taliban and will fail like the earlier deals struck between the Pakistani government and the militants in 2004, 2005 and 2006. The Taliban have demonstrated they have no honor, they have even sold out their own.
At what point does the USA quit supporting stupidity? This amounts to duplicity, secret agreements with the Taliban about keeping al Qaeda as pets.
Refusing direct USA military aid and troops to close with their taliban enemy of which they are seem incapable of defeating.
If the Afghans and Pakis can't meet certain bench marks, then let them suffer the Taliban. Impose economic sanctions, they have the responsibility to bear the burden in this struggle not America. Currently Pakistan is in the middle of an economic boom.
Pulling aid and Military support from Paki would kill the economic BOOM! during the ensuing Taliban take over.
Pakistan has admitted they are not pursuing Bin Laden, Paki Not looking for Biny. Comparatively, the area occupied by Pakistan is slightly less than twice the size of the state of California. Give them 6 months to get him, if they don't' then cut aid $ by 50%. Only $5 billion a year. put the other $5 billion into USA's Social Security System. They have had 6 years, and Billion$ and billion$ of UDS and 100,000 troops and can't find Biny? BS.
Establish corruption police in Afghan, with targeted bench marks on transparency and arrests. Cut Afghan aid if the marks are not met.
Currently "they" are playing both ends against each other and pocketing the money.
Bring in the FBI and start investigations , make arrests and send the crooks to prison. The current paradigm is NOT working.
They profit from the GWOT by corruption and keeping the bad guys free to keep the funds flowing for fighting the bad guys.
Afghan and Paki develop a secure Durand line (Durand Line, Talibans stealthborder...) and work together or blanket mine it except for controlled points of entry. Afghan has a right to a secure border when there is an invasion of Taliban killing their citizens.
There is no percentage for Afghan and Paki to get rid of the terrorists. When the GWOT is won, their subsidy from USA isn't going to be $10 billion a year. USA pulling out 100,000 troops will have the reverse effect of Regan's trickle down in their economys.
USA is there to HELP, NOT DO IT FOR THEM.
IF THEY ARE NOT GOING TO TRY, THEN WE NEED TO CHANGE THE PARADIGM.
USA should not be begging to stay but threating to leave.
Tell Paki and Afghan to get off their asses or they loose big money. Stop the corruption or go to prison. Make the aid subject to FBI scrutiny. Start putting the big crooks in prison.
Gerald Anthropologist
UPDATE: AFTER PAKI TALIBAN INVADE AFGHAN AND ATTACK PRISION AFGHAN THREATENS TO INVADE PAKI TO GET BM. UPDATE: Pakistan's Plea For Patience The need for a response helps explain the speed with which Husain Haqqani has been shuttling around Washington. The former adviser to assassinated People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto presented his credentials as Pakistan's new ambassador in Washington on June 6. Within hours he was rushing to and from the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department and Congress in an attempt to buy tolerance -- and time -- for his fragile government.
I asked Haqqani if he and his new ministers in Islamabad had thought about what would happen to Pakistan and its newly reborn democracy if a major al-Qaeda attack against the United States succeeded and was traced back to the tribal areas. "What do you think keeps me up at night?" he answered. "We want to make sure that it doesn't come to that." Then he was off to the next stop on his tour, and his next plea for patience.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- With Christmas 2005 approaching, the princes of al Qaeda's western command were gathering. They'd been summoned for something special: to plot a three-month campaign of coordinated suicide, rocket and infantry attacks on American bases, checkpoints and Iraqi army positions.
An Iraqi army officer shows a fake ID taken off an al Qaeda suspect in Mosul in May.
In al Qaeda in Iraq's hierarchy, prince designates a senior leader, and these princes had been gathered by the most senior among them, the prince of Anbar province itself.
This commander, his name not recorded in al Qaeda's summaries of the meetings and referred to only by rank, spent that December fleshing out his vision for the wave of assaults with the gathered subordinates who would lead his combat brigades.
The gathering was a council of war, its meetings remarkably detailed in al Qaeda records. In minutes of their secretive meetings, a grim notation was made: Operation Desert Shield had been approved and would "hopefully commence in mid-January 2006." Watch a report on the document trove »
With the operation approved, the prince of Anbar listened to the briefings of his assembled commanders: the chairmen of both his military and his security committees, plus the various princes from the sectors he controlled -- Falluja, Ramadi, Anbar-West and Anbar-Central. All boundary demarcations strikingly similar to those used by the American soldiers they were fighting.
Anderson Cooper 360°
"360°" sorts through one of the largest collections of al Qaeda documents to fall into civilian hands. Tonight, 10 ET on CNN
The overall plan, too, was similar to any that the U.S. army would devise. First, the military committee chairman outlined plans to seal off the U.S. targets as much as possible by harassing supply lines, damaging bridges and targeting helicopters and their landing zones, in a bid to restrict reinforcement or resupply.
Then the security chairman spoke of the need to maintain strict "operational security," ordaining that only the princes, or leaders, involved in the meetings be informed of the grand strategy, leaving cell leaders and battalion commanders to believe their individual attacks were being launched in isolation.
All this would be Phase I, a precursor to the 90 days of attacks of Phase II, to be timed across not just Anbar but across much of Sunni Iraq to stretch and distract America's war commander, Gen. David Petraeus.
Flowing from the memo approving Operation Desert Shield, a stream of reports follow.
On January 7, 2006, a memo called for Iraqis who'd infiltrated various U.S. bases to conduct site surveys to help identify the camps that would be hit. The two-page note also spoke of placing ammunition stores well in advance of the attacks so the fighters could resort to them during the battles.
The January memo also commented on training and rehearsals for the offensive and the extraction routes their fighters would use after the attacks, and it dictated the need to obtain pledges from the foot soldiers of their willingness to die.
Al Qaeda's methods
Roadside bombs
Abandoned vehicles, dead animals and other objects are loaded with explosives and detonated by remote control as the target passes by.
Suicide bombings
Suicide attacks are executed by means of explosive-laden vehicles or individuals wearing vests packed with explosives.
Katyusha rockets
The name represents a variety of artillery rockets, most frequently 122 mm. They have little guidance but are a favorite weapon of terrorist groups.
-- Globalsecurity.org
In another memo, reports were compiled from al Qaeda field commanders recommending which U.S. Army and Marine bases or Iraqi checkpoints or police stations should be targeted. Baghdad International Airport was one of the targets named. Beside each entry were notes on weapons each target would require: Grad surface-to-surface missiles, Katyusha rockets, roadside bombs and suicide bombers.
Phase II, the 90-day offensive, commenced around March 2006, with al Qaeda's records from Anbar that month reading like a litany of what the U.S. Army would call AARs, or After Action Reports, listing each attack's successes and failures. It also noted the losses suffered by both al Qaeda or, in what Americans would call Battle Damage Assessments, the losses suffered by the coalition.
Al Qaeda's folder on Operation Desert Shield expresses the depth, structure and measure of its military command. It is perhaps the most compelling illustration of how al Qaeda works.
Yet the Desert Shield folder is but one found among the thousands of pages of records, letters, lists and hundreds of videos held in the headquarters of al Qaeda's security prince for Anbar province, a man referred to in secret correspondence as Faris Abu Azzam.
After he was killed 18 months ago, Faris' computers and filing cabinets were captured by anti-al Qaeda fighters from a U.S-backed militia, or Awakening Council (the militias made up of former Sunni insurgents, now on the U.S. payroll and praised by President Bush for gutting al Qaeda in Iraq). The Awakening militiamen handed the massive haul of al Qaeda materials to both their U.S handlers from the Navy, Marine Corps and Army, and to CNN.
In all, these Anbar files form the largest collection of al Qaeda in Iraq materials to ever fall into civilian hands, giving an insight into the organization that few but its members or Western intelligence agents have ever seen.
Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, the American military's spokesman in Baghdad, says the document trove is unique, "a kind of comprehensive snapshot" of al-Qaeda during its peak.
"It reveals," Driscoll said, "first of all, a pretty robust command and control system, if you will. I was kind of surprised when I saw the degree of documentation for everything -- pay records, those kind of things -- and that [al Qaeda in Iraq] was obviously a well-established network."
That network is now under enormous stress, primarily from the more than 100,000 nationalist insurgents who formed the Awakening Council militias and initiated an extremely effective assassination program against al Qaeda, but also from recent U.S. and Iraqi government strikes into their strongholds.
As a result, says Lt. Col. Tim Albers, the coalition's director of military intelligence for Baghdad, "al Qaeda in Iraq is fighting to stay relevant."
Awakening Councils
Awakening Councils are civilian Sunni Muslim groups and their militias that have organized to oppose al Qaeda in Iraq.
So, what do these captured documents from 2006 tell us about al Qaeda in Iraq today? A lot, according to a senior U.S. intelligence analyst in Iraq, who cannot be named because of the sensitivity of his position.
"We're still finding documents like these throughout the country, but I would say that's starting to lessen in amount as the organization shrinks," the analyst said.
The al Qaeda command mechanism and discipline seen in the documents, he said, persist.
"The hard-core senior leadership is still trucking along, and there are always going to be internal communications, documents and videos," he said.
With as many as six suicide attacks and three car bombings in the past 10 days in Iraq (including one attack that killed a U.S. soldier and wounded 18 others), Driscoll agrees the picture the documents paint of a well-oiled, bureaucratic organization is relevant today.
"Certainly, we see that in several different ways how they communicate ... as they've got to be able to talk to their troops in the field to maintain morale, especially when we're pursuing them very aggressively," Driscoll said.
Be it then, in 2006, or be it now, al Qaeda in Iraq is nothing if not bureaucratic.
Included in the headquarters of the security prince, Faris, are bundles of pay sheets for entire brigades, hundreds of men carved into infantry battalions and a fire support -- or rocket and mortar -- battalion. To join those ranks, recruits had to complete membership forms.
"These are the application forms filled in by the people who join al Qaeda," Abu Saif said, holding one of the documents obtained by CNN. Until recently, Abu Saif was himself a senior-level al Qaeda commander.
"They took information about [the recruits], and if the applicant lied about something -- because they were investigated -- they would whip him," Abu Saif said.
Induction into al Qaeda, he said, would take up to four months. In one case, Abu Saif recounted, an applicant lived for four months at the home of what he thought was a local supporter of the organization providing a safe house. Finally accepted and called to a cell leaders' meeting, he discovered that his host was actually a senior recruiter who'd been studying his every move for those four months.
Al Qaeda's bookkeeping was orderly and expansive: death lists of opponents, rosters of prisoners al Qaeda was holding, along with the verdicts and sentences (normally execution) the prisoners received, plus phone numbers from a telephone exchange of those who'd called the American tip line to inform on insurgents, and motor pool records of vehicle roadworthiness.
And there are telling papers with a window into al Qaeda's ability to spy on its pursuers. One is a document leaked from the Ministry of Interior naming all the foreign fighters held in government prisons. Other documents discuss lessons al Qaeda learned from its members captured by American forces and either released or still in U.S.-run prisons. The leadership studied and discussed the nature of the American interrogations, the questioning techniques used and the methods that had been employed to ensnare its men.
And an Iraqi contractor even wrote the Anbar security prince, asking permission to oversee a $600,000 building project on a U.S. base, attaching the architectural drawings of the bunkers he was to make, with an offer to spy and steal weapons during the construction.
It seems al Qaeda in Iraq is almost as pedantically bureaucratic as was Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, a trait that really shouldn't surprise.
Though al Qaeda was denied a foothold in Iraq during Hussein's regime, with its ideology unappealing to the mostly secular professional military officers in the former dictator's armies, that has now changed.
According to the internal al Qaeda correspondence in the files, Iraqis have taken to, and effectively run, al Qaeda in Iraq. Foreign fighters' roles seem mostly relegated to the canon fodder of suicide attacks.
Though the upper tiers of the organization are still dominated by non-Iraqis, in Anbar, at least, all the princes and brigade and battalion commanders are homegrown.
"Correct. They're all Iraqis," Abu Saif said. "In my house [one time], there were about 18 Arab fighters under Iraqi commander Omar Hadid, mercy of God upon him, and the [foreigners] did not object, they just did their duty."
That Iraqification of the network is what perhaps enabled al Qaeda to foresee its demise years before the Americans did.
Documents from 2005 and 2006 show that top-ranking leaders feared the imposition of strict religious law and brutal tactics were turning their popular support base against them.
One memorandum from three years ago warned executions of traitors and sinners condemned by religious courts "were being carried out in the wrong way, in a semi-public way, so a lot of families are threatening revenge, and this is now a dangerous intelligence situation."
That awareness led al Qaeda to start killing tribesmen and nationalist insurgents wherever they began to rally against it, long before America ever realized that it had potential allies to turn to.
Yet those same practices that accelerated al Qaeda in Iraq's undoing were breathtakingly documented.
In a vein similar to the Khmer Rouge's grisly accounting of its torture victims, within the files of one al Qaeda headquarters in Anbar alone was a library of 80 execution videos, mostly beheadings, none of which had been distributed or released on the Internet. And all were filmed after al Qaeda in Iraq ended its policy of broadcasting such horrors.
So why keep filming? According to former member Abu Saif and the senior U.S. intelligence analyst, to verify the deaths to al Qaeda superiors and to justify continued funding and support.
The videos also bear insight into al Qaeda's media units. Raw video among the catalog of beheadings shows how al Qaeda's editing skills hide not just its members' faces (caught in candid moments on the un-edited films) but also their failures.
When three Russian diplomats were kidnapped and killed in June 2006, a well-polished propaganda piece was released. It showed two diplomats being gruesomely beheaded, and yet the third diplomat was shot with a pistol, in a different location. The full video of the slayings answers why.
Though bound and blindfolded, the third diplomat struggled so defiantly that his ailing executioners could not draw their knife across his throat. In the horrific and chaotic scenes, the faces of his killer and the cameraman are seen.
And those scenes, like the intricacy of the prince of Anbar's planning and internal analysis of Operation Desert Shield, reveal an al Qaeda in Iraq that the world still barely knows.
ABC News reports that the medium by which Zawahiri's latest message was released also suggests a tactical change.
One terrorism expert who studies jihadist websites says the audio message may signal a shift in Al Qaeda's media operations. The expert cites the fact that both Zawahiri's message and top Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's last address were both released without video. The expert also says the recent files uploaded to jihadist websites have appeared in Arabic, rather than their usual format in English. SOURCE: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"One terrorism expert who studies jihadist websites says the audio message may signal a shift in Al Qaeda's media operations."
Yes its a shift its called degraded, crippled.
They are operating with 3 and 4 th level cadre. That means Zees Internet Security had to be sloppy.....
They have gone from high end professional produced videos in multiple languages to "VOICE TAPE RECORDINGS" They know the webmasters/media are being tracked and arrested or KILLED. Sometimes they just disappear in the middle of the night, CIA denys any knowledge.
Nice concept, add in Religion of the area Sunni, Shiia, Jews, Christians, tribal loyalties, double crossing al Qaeda, Taliban like sheep following aQ, European intrests, and the OIL game with Russia and India, throw in blackwater and CIA, PENTAGON SPECIAL FORCES, Saudi Arbia and Wabism and Internet Info war, value of Dollar, Iran and sanctions, cultural differences, Patki and Isrial Nukes, Kurds. Now send it to State department and Pentagon, to play to a win. Send me a copy also.
.... This is doable, I wrote a computer game ( as Game theorist ) that sold 500,000 copies.
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