http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC09Ak03.html
Mar 9, 201
Libyan test for refocused al-Qaeda
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - The Libyan political upheaval that is rapidly turning into a civil
war has unambiguously split Libyan society between the west of the country and
the pro-Muammar Gaddafi bloc, and the "rebels" to the east centered around
Benghazi and beyond.
The root of the unrest is intrinsically liberal and secular - as it was in
Egypt and Tunisia - leaving very little ground on which Islamic political
forces can operate.
During these turbulent times in the Arab world, al-Qaeda has been only a
spectator; however, it is poised to pounce on any opportunity that might arise
to allow it to become a part of the action in Libya.
In a way, this places al-Qaeda in the same position as Western countries, some
of which are positioning to actively intervene in Libya, even if it is at the
least by enforcing a no-fly zone to protect the rebels from Gaddafi's fighter
planes and bombers.
Al-Qaeda's most powerful Libyan cluster, al-Jamaa al-Muqatilah (Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group), is apprehensive of being marginalized, according to members of
the Libyan militant camp in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area.
They believe that al-Qaeda needs to kick in to give an ideological mooring to
the armed opposition and to prevent the situation from falling into the hands
of pro-Western agitators, especially with Western capitals looking for an
arrangement to prop up liberal and secular forces, even through direct military
intervention.
Most of al-Jamaa al-Muqatilah's members come from the Benghazi area and the
group has provided some of the best commanders among al-Qaeda's contingents in
Afghanistan. These include Abu Laith al-Libi, killed in a drone attack in 2008,
who led a failed coup against Gaddafi in 1994. It was after the coup attempt
that Libi headed for Afghanistan, where he led several high-profile operations,
including the attack on Bagram base outside the capital Kabul in 2007 during
then-United States vice president Dick Cheney's visit.
Asia Times Online contacts in the militant camps say that current al-Qaeda
ideologue and military strategist Abu Yahya al-Libi is now trying to mobilize
of al-Qaeda's cadre in Libya to quickly jump onto the unrest bandwagon. Libi,
who comes from Benghazi and who has authored many books, played a significant
role in al-Qaeda's mobilization in Yemen and Somalia while living in
Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas.
Libi escaped from the US detention facility at Bagram in 2005 and was recently
elevated as one of al-Qaeda's main leaders and he now often chairs shura
(council) meetings to make important decisions in the absence of Osama bin
Laden and his deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Al-Qaeda's agitation over playing an active role in Libya goes against an
earlier decision to stay in the background when the unrest broke out in North
Africa and beyond early this year. Al-Qaeda resolved to simply work alongside
Islamic forces to strengthen the position of Islamic movements against liberal
and secular forces. With all-out civil war imminent in Libya, though, al-Qaeda
does not want to become sidelined.
Crucially, though, although al-Qaeda will try to play an active role in Libya,
it will be in conjunction with Islamic parties to prop up the masses - and it
will not incorporate the terror operations that have characterized al-Qaeda's
operations over the past years, notably in Iraq.
This marks a fundamental shift in al-Qaeda's philosophy that began last year
when one of its ideologues, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, wrote a thesis Twenty
Guidelines for Jihad that was published on a pro-al-Qaeda website. (See
Broadside fired at al-Qaeda leaders Asia Times Online, December 10, 2010.)
Ghaith questioned al-Qaeda's go-it-alone policy, criticized the September 11,
2001, attacks on the US as well as the decision to sever ties with
international Islamic movements. This, argued Ghaith, had led to a complete
disconnect with Muslim societies.
This discourse reached a climax when Saif al-Adil (or Saiful Adil) wrote an
article for the same website in January in which he called for al-Qaeda to
support Islamic political parties in the Arab world and urged Muslim scholars
to refrain from criticizing them. The two ideologues pointed to an urgent need
for al-Qaeda to tap into the mainstream of the Muslim world by drawing opinion
from its varied societies, intelligentsia and Islamic movements.
Al-Qaeda down the evolutionary road
Academics across the Muslim world were unable to justify the September 11
attacks as they were mainly directed against civilians and went against the
basic norms for launching a battle against any usurper anti-Muslim force. Yet
al-Qaeda claimed they were the only way to organize a backlash in the Muslim
world against Western hegemony in the lopsided global politics following the
end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. Further, many Muslim regimes were
allied with the American camp.
Following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and then of Iraq in
2003, al-Qaeda's focus remained to strengthen polarization in Muslim-majority
states to bring them all to a single point of revolt against Western influence
and Western-supported regimes in the Muslim world.
Al-Qaeda went so aggressively in pursuit of this that it turned against its
ideological parent - the Muslim Brotherhood - as well as against partner
organizations like Hamas in Gaza and the Pakistani militant groups
Jamaat-e-Islami and Lashkar-e-Taiba when they refused to support al-Qaeda-led
struggles for revolts in Muslim states.
Several international events during al-Qaeda's engagement with world powers in
Afghanistan and Iraq, including the global recession and food riots in Egypt in
2008, fired the imagination of some al-Qaeda leaders. They believed al-Qaeda's
military operations had reached a level at which the Americans were being
squeezed through loss of resources in the war theaters of Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Thus, the American ability to maneuver through
injecting money into Muslim-majority states was limited.
Economic hard times and political polarization were the natural outcome,
however, al-Qaeda's limited structure was unable to manipulate the situation,
besides, the circumstances warranted serious political moves to prop up the
masses rather than terror operations.
Therefore, after Iran released several senior al-Qaeda leaders early last year
and they went to Afghanistan, they initiated top-level debate through Twenty
Guidelines for Jihad.
Finally, al-Qaeda's leaders reconciled to a new direction and in recent weeks
Zawahiri - who previously had justified each and every terror attack against
civilians - came out with a statement that essentially marks a major paradigm
shift in al-Qaeda's policies and indicates the beginning of its mainstreaming
into Muslim world politics.
"There are certain operations attributed, rightly or falsely, to the
mujahideen, in which Muslims are attacked in their mosques, market places or
gatherings. Me and my brothers in al-Qaeda distance ourselves from such
operations and condemn them," Zawahri said in an audio recording. Zawahiri
claimed in the same message that he was speaking on the directive of Bin Laden.
"I urge the mujahideen to consider the rulings of sharia [Islamic law] and the
interests of Muslims before undertaking any jihad operation," he said. Al-Qaeda
members should refrain from indiscriminate attacks on "Muslim or non-Muslims",
Zawahri added.
Al-Qaeda will, however, intensify the battle alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan to make it as difficult as possible for the Americans to go ahead
with their phased withdrawal, which is due to begin this July.
At the same time, al-Qaeda's cadre in the Middle East and beyond will devote
themselves to mainstream Islamic parties until the process of khuruj (revolt)
completes its full cycle for ultimate change, which means Islamic revolution
and the revival of the global caliphate, according to al-Qaeda and other
Islamists.
Al-Qaeda is now reconnecting with Islamic parties, and Libya could be a staring
point of bigger things to come.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief and author of
upcoming book Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban, beyond 9/11 published by Pluto
Press, UK. He can be reached at [email protected]
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