Roger Simon is here at AEI this week and was kind enough to bring along a camera, so if any of you are interested in seeing what I or Dr. Ledeen look like, feel to take a look here. Don't worry, we censored everything within proper security precautions, though who would have ever suspected that Michael Ledeen had a Darth Vader mask on his desk?
Now, onto the more substantive stuff...
- Ingushetia (near Chechnya) where extremely brutal fighting is in progress.
- Algeria's al-Qaeda ally the GSPC has its leader Nabil Sahraoui killed - what are the implications?
- Saddam Fedayeen & al-Qaeda.
- Dumb assumptions people still believe.
Ingushetia
Ingushetia is a Muslim majority republic on the borders of Chechnya (the BBC has a fairly good primer up) and like the Chechens, they were deported en masse by Stalin for suspected collaboration with the Nazis and were only allowed to return after his death. When Dzhokar Dudayev declared Chechen independence, the Ingush chose to remain in the Russian fold, which of late has made them a target for the al-Qaeda wing of the Chechen insurgents under Shamil Basayev as well as the more secular nationalists led by Aslan Maskhadov. The latter consider the Ingush traitors to their heritage and cowards while the former view them as apostates due their embrace of secular Russian rule and adoption of a sane brand of Islam that doesn't involve massacres and beheadings. While Chechen raids sometimes spill over into Ingushetia, the most recent attack was the largest that I am aware of ever since the Second Chechen War began in 1999.
Reports of extremely brutal fighting throughout Ingushetia are still coming in, but the New York Times puts the body count at 75 dead, only 2 of them insurgents.
Russian media is reporting that the raid was masterminded by both Basayev and Maskhadov, though I'm more inclined to suspect the former than the latter. He's the one with the international connections to al-Qaeda and the Saudi funding, as well as the loyalty of the Chechen foreign jihadis. In addition, the strategy being utilized here is more or less akin to that which one of his deputies, Amir Ramzan, formulated several months back, as I noted at the time. Attacking Ingushetia, especially in so brutal a fashion, doesn't make much sense if your goal is an independent Chechnya. If your intention is conquering the Caucasus, on the other hand.
Finally, here's the statement from a member of the staff of the "Ingush Mujahideen" identifying himself as Amir Assadula.
Nabil Sahraoui removed from the gene pool
Nabil Sahraoui, the grand potenate of the GSPC, has been killed along with his top lieutenant Okacha el-Para and 5 bodyguards. With Sahraoui dead and his second-in-command, Amari Saifi, in the hands of hardline elements of the Chadian MDJT rebels, the GSPC leadership is likely to engage in a power struggle in which Mokhtar Belmokhtar would seem to be the most able candidate to succeed Sahraoui. However, his death has left the GSPC leadership decapitated and dealt a major blow to al-Qaeda's African ambitions.
Shakir
Much has been made in recent days of 9/11 commissioner John Lehman's claim that a prominent al-Qaeda member was an officer in the Saddam Fedayeen, with the usual suspects (as I said, you'd be amazed at how many of these "senior administration officials," "current/former intelligence officials," ect. are all just a couple dozen people inside of government who want to get their views aired anonymously for a variety of reasons and have cultivated relationships with certain journalists to do just that) have been arguing that Lehman was too stupid to distinguish between Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi and Lieutenant Colonel Hikmat Shakir Ahmad. Ignoring the fact that there at least 3 different ways to spell "Mohammed" in English, all of which can show up on translated Arabic documents, let me just say that my definite animus for the commission (or more specifically, Staff Statement No. 15) aside that Lehman is not as dumb as Pincus, Royce, et al. would have one believe.
I would also note that in somebody in the intelligence community inadvertently overplayed their hand when they told Jonathan Landay that Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi (referred hereafter as simply "Shakir") was employed with the aid of Iraqi intelligence as a greeter in Kuala Lumpur. Previously, individuals within the intelligence community opposed to the idea that Shakir was working with the Iraqis in Kuala Lumpur had made the case, particularly to the folks from Newsweek, that Shakir's patron at the embassy was too low-level to be a Mukhabarat operative. I don't imagine that this will register to most reporters, but setting Shakir up as a recipient of Mukhabarat aid is a pretty big deal whether or not he was ever in the Saddam Fedayeen. Without knowing it, those individuals who were so busy trying to undercut what Lehman said pretty much shot themselves in the foot.
Oops.
One final point is that this is not so much a partisan battle as it is clash of worldviews betweening prevailing assumptions within certain quarters of the intelligence community concerning the nature and extent of Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda. This whole idea that secular and religious fundamentalists don't cooperate, incidentally, appears to be one of several memes that a number of individuals hold to.
Here are some others:
- The Saudi royals would never cooperate with al-Qaeda, whose purported purpose it is to bring down their regime.
- Shi'ite and Sunni Islamist groups have such opposing worldviews to the extent that they would never cooperate with one another.
- The Pakistani military-intelligence apparatus, even those quasi-independent arms of it, would never knowingly cooperate with al-Qaeda because the Pakistani worldview is regional, in contrast to al-Qaeda's global agenda.
These assumptions and others like them, which are most assuredly not held by everyone within the US intelligence community, have severely hampered the ability of the United States to assess the war on terrorism. Doug Feith, for example, pretty much figured out the true extent of the Saudi role with regard to al-Qaeda back in November 2001 but he was listened to by the policy-makers until nearly half a year later. If one is curious as to why the administration appears so willing to listen to the neocons on so many policy issues, I would submit to my readership that it is in large part due to the fact that they have been more or less correct in the majority of such issues with respect to al-Qaeda.
Hi Dan! I have beheld Michael Ledeen's visage at NRO, but my heart quails at the ferocious and warlike aspect of your intimidating countenace! Never will I cross opinion swords with you! :-)
Ummm, I have been arguing with Colt though, about al Muqrin's age. I have seen both 18 and 31-- are there two al Muqrins?
Why do some intel folks continue to cling to the myth that religious and secular folks cannot cooperate towards a common goal, when there is no evidence for that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary?
We see such evidence right here in DC on an almost-daily basis, with the secular left (ANSWER et al) marching with the jihadists against the US.
Totally irrelevant, but the Vader mask reminded me of Warren Kinsella's recent CBC appearance as the Dark Lord himself.
http://andrewcoyne.com/archives/003709.php
For those going "Huh?":
Warren Kinsella is a Liberal Party spin doctor who used to be the brains behind the party's election campaigns, leading to three straight Liberal majorities. He recently had a falling out with current Liberal leader and Prime Minister Paul Martin.
He was on the CBC (Canada's cheap version of the BBC) explaining the effect of political spin on the current Canadian federal election campaign.
We return you back to our regular programming.
jinni twisterella:
No, it's the same guy, but there are two separate reports as to how old he is. There's a similar situation as far as how old Sadr is.
Fredrik Nyman:
"Why do some intel folks continue to cling to the myth that religious and secular folks cannot cooperate towards a common goal, when there is no evidence for that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary?"
I'd say in part that it's an over-intellectualized view of the world and a belief that it's impossible for individuals who are ideologically fanatical to be pragmatic when aligning with groups and organizations with whom they disagree. The entire intel community doesn't subscribe to this position, I should add.
The other, less charitable reason that one might provide is that these individuals have other reasons for adopting the positions that they do. If you read the NYT story on Feith's terrorism analysis, you'll see one individual who was told not to assist with efforts to formally establish such a collaboration because it would "help Wolfowitz."
Oui.
The entire intel community doesn't subscribe to this position, I should add.
That's also true of the State Dept.
The Saudi royals would never cooperate with al-Qaeda, whose purported purpose it is to bring down their regime.
I wonder to what extent Bin Laden is operating a sort of global protection racket. Perhaps this has a lot to do with it.
Michael Ledeen should have a blog.
/random thoughts
asdf:
Well, to a certain extent that's true, however there are certain Saudi princes who almost certainly sympathetic to al-Qaeda as far as its objectives are concerned. I wouldn't necessarily place Nayef in that category for a variety of reasons. To fall back on the mafia analogy, the al-Saud family is currently in the midst of some in-fighting and Nayef and Sultan have sought to enlist the aid of another family in settling a score.
Colt:
He kina does, it's on NRO ;)
Well, yeah. But I need a more regular fix :-)
Dan, if you've got time, could you answer my question about the Iran-Contra TOW missiles being duds?
Dan,
It seems you are learning the true motto of Washington: "The war may change, but the enemy is always the same."
Here's another photo from Dan's days in the music biz, on tour with the "K Street Band".
proofread please.
A remarkable statement from B. Raman:
"The Afghan war of the 1980s against the Soviet troops attracted around 6,000 foreign jihadis, who joined the Afghan mujahideen groups and their Pakistani supporters in their fight against the Soviets. The largest component of these foreign jihadis were Chechens [my emphasis] - mainly Arabs of Chechen origin from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Chechen migrants from Turkey and Chechen deserters from the Soviet Armed Forces. They were followed by Arabs of non-Chechen origin and Muslims from other countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines."
And he also says Osama kept Arabs of Chechen origin out of Al Qaeda, out of fear that they had connections to Jordanian or other intelligence agencies; and so these "Chechen Arabs" turned to Pakistani jihadi organizations and to Zarqawi's Tawhid group.
The claim that the largest segment of the foreign mujahideen in 1980s Afghanistan were of Chechen origin sounded a little strange to me. But then I found this article on "Chechens in the Middle East". It says the Chechens lived on the boundary of the Russian and Ottoman empires, and some fled deeper into Ottoman territory when the Russians advanced, and then into Arabia proper when Turkish nationalism arose. And then, remarkably, the Jordanian anthropologist giving this review says that the Chechen community he's chosen to study is "on the outskirts of the larger city of Az Zarqa'." This is the capital of Zarqa province, from which al Zarqawi gets his name! (It's also supposed to be the only Palestinian-majority province in Jordan.)
Meanwhile, here is a useful little list from the Jamestown Foundation of Al Qaeda figures who have fought in Chechnya. I find the source ironic, since the Foundation specializes in trying to dissociate Russia's war on terror from the USA's. We may be seeing another dimension of blowback here - the Chechen Arabs may have been recruited specifically on the basis that, because of their background, they were more willing to fight Russians.
Anyhow, back to B. Raman for a moment. Before India's recent entente with the USA, it was always a little closer to the USSR in my judgement, despite being formally "non-aligned". To some extent I think this article is an appeal for Russians and Americans to work together. Combine this with Putin's recent statement about Iraq's plans for terrorist actions against the USA, after 9/11, and for that matter Bush's attempt to heal divisions with the EU, and perhaps you can see India, Russia and Europe deciding that they have to work together with the USA to stop the terrorism, despite their objections to the invasion of Iraq. (Compare Victor Hanson's assessment of the current positions of Russia, China, India and Europe.)
One footnote on the topic of immigration into the Middle East. Along with immigration from the Caucasus, there has also been immigration from the Balkans - there are apparently Palestinians of Bosnian descent, for example. Both migrations would appear to be coupled with the retreat of the Ottoman Empire, and with the revival of jihad in modern times. This is something that ought to be looked into.