The Long-Anticipated Crackdown ... Representatives of Osama bin Laden informed the Taliban in November that al-Qaeda was shifting forces away from Afghanistan to Iraq. As a result, hundreds of European jihadis have been recruited by al-Qaeda and sent to Iraq to fight against coalition forces there. European intelligence and security services have identified the ultimate source of these recruiting efforts as none other than Abu Musab Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda affiliate organization al-Tawhid. According to reports in the Seattle Times, this same network of European extremists headed by Zarqawi was also responsible for the deployment of at least two associates of the 9/11 hijackers. Recently, however, things have been heating up for al-Tawhid and al-Qaeda in general with arrests in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Britain, and Turkey. These arrests and others like them are likely to severely deplete al-Qaeda's ability to operate in Western Europe for at least several months until the organization can establish new networks on the Continent from which to either recruit or to conduct attacks. Hizb-ut-Tahrir: Al-Qaeda's political wing? Far more ominously, however, are recent revelations that I first learned of from Alphabet City. The transcripts that Robert Stevens links to are of wiretaps conducted by Italian authorities as part of an investigation into members of Ansar al-Islam and if you want to see the ins and out of how al-Qaeda operates inside the West, this is it. During one of the wiretappings, Ansar al-Islam member Nasr Usama Mustafa is told by his German Arab superior the following: "On 16 of last month there was a confidential meeting with the shaykhs in Poland; the final decision was to completely change the Hizb al-Tahrir front and to build a new organization that concerns itself with the national territory and with the international territory but we need highly trained people at every level." Now "shaykhs" here doesn't necessarily mean clerics, since Arab honorific can refer to either a cleric or to an older or esteemed man (for example, al-Qaeda members often refer to bin Laden as "Sheikh Osama" even though he is not an Islamic cleric). However, the organization that the unidentified German Arab is referring to is Hizb-ut-Tahrir. As this profile from the Heritage Foundation via ICT indicates, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (referred hereafter as HuT) has tens of thousands of members worldwide ranging from London to Indonesia. While the organization is widely banned and persecuted throughout much of Central Asia and the Middle East, it still meets openly in Yemen and seeks to implement a worldwide sha'riah. The latter would be more than enough to place them in the kook category for most Westerners, but understand that this organization has a presence on most major European university campuses. The profile also notes that the identity of the organization's current leader and other senior members is unknown, but given the group's wide reach and apparent objectives I don't think that it's too much of a stretch to speculate that the individual in question may be none other than Osama bin Laden and that Hizb-ut-Tahrir may be functioning as the political arm of his organization. The involvement of Hizb-ut-Tahrir members in plotting an attack against US interests in Azerbaijan as well as having ties to Islamic extremists in Chechnya would seem to support this assertion. Plots and Counter-Plots in Sana'a As noted in previous editions of Winds of War, the government of Yemen has been negotiating with al-Qaeda ever since September 2003 to work out some sort of agreement under which the terror network would cease operations inside the country. Al-Qaeda appeared open to such an agreement, with the stipulation that in return the government would be required to start releasing al-Qaeda members from jail. For nearly a month the negotiations seemed to have little effect, with the exception of al-Qaeda regrouping inside the country. Then on November 11, 2003 Yemeni security officials balked at a presidential degree that would have released over 150 "repentent" al-Qaeda in spite of the fact that some al-Qaeda who had previously been released (???) had gone right back to the terrorism business as soon as they were out of jail. It appears that the objections from security officials were enough to convince Yemeni strongman Saleh to only release 92 al-Qaeda, but lest we forget it only took 19 to bring down the World Trade Center. Then on December 13, a statement arrives from al-Qaeda's Yemeni politburo claiming responsibility for the assassination of the intelligence chief of the Ibb governorate and claiming that the government violated its agreement with them. While al-Qaeda is not generally the most credible source, this statement, which was intended for local distribution, has the ring of truth to it, especially given that the communique also promises vengeance for any attempts to harm the family Amal al-Saddah, one of bin Laden's four wives. This isn't the only interesting bit of information coming out of Yemen, however. Recently, Yemeni authorities captured Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, a key al-Qaeda financier and one of the organization's key leaders in the country. Yet mysteriously, they aren't going to let the US talk to him. Why not? Well, among other things, al-Ahdal is reputed to know quite a lot about who funds al-Qaeda, which may explain who Saleh has called in to help them interrogate him ... Cutting the Cash Flow I know you all are no doubt shocked at the notion that the Saudis would ever be involved in anything remotely relating to terrorism, those tricky things called facts keep cropping up to a point where not even a hundred Adel al-Jubeirs can rationalize it away. To begin with, US News and World Report published a lengthy article detailing the Saudi role in financing al-Qaeda and its affiliated networks. Most of what is written in the article has already been known for sometime for those of us who have been following this, but there was one extremely interesting tidbit - numerous members within the royal family are quite aware of where their money is going and actively support the goals of al-Qaeda. This is quite significant because puts to lie the idea that the Saudi royals have been essentially paying protection money to al-Qaeda over the course of the last decade and places at least some of them in active alliance with the organization and its goals. This is going to complicate any actual efforts (as opposed to window-dressing, which is pretty much what we've seen to date) by the Saudi monarchy to crack down on the al-Qaeda primary financiers, most of whom are still very much at large inside the Kingdom. Ever further complicating the situation involves the fact that numerous known al-Qaeda financiers and front companies in Europe, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere are in many cases still operating unhindered more than two years after the events of 9/11, even to point where Wahhabi charities like the al-Haramain Foundation continue to operate despite US and international efforts to stem the flow of terrorist financing. In Conclusion ... Each of these events should serve as things to keep in perspective as events unfold while the Winds of War shuts down for the holiday season. The capture of Saddam Hussein has given us all something of an early Christmas present and with a little bit of luck, the enemy will have nothing to look forward to in the new year.