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January 22, 2008 - Volume 5, Issue 3
* Al-Qaeda Completes its Organizational Mission in Iraq
By Michael Scheuer
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Al-Qaeda Completes its Organizational Mission in Iraq
By Michael Scheuer
This is the second of two articles assessing the content of Osama bin
Laden's December 29 statement.
Since 2003, al-Qaeda has had dual but independently achievable goals in
Iraq-the two can be termed "Islamist" and "organizational"-and each is
assessed in bin Laden's December 29, 2007 statement [1]. Al-Qaeda's Islamist
goal in Iraq is to assist in the creation of an Islamic emirate, a goal that
now appears quite distant, and perhaps infinitely beyond reach (see
Terrorism Focus, January 8, 2007). Assuredly, however, al-Qaeda and its
allies take solace from the evolving situation in Afghanistan and the
growing chance that a Taliban-like emirate eventually can be re-established.
Al-Qaeda's second goal in Iraq-its organizational goal-has been to secure
safe havens that are contiguous to regions to which it previously has had
little or no access; namely, the Levant, Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula.
In that endeavor, it must now be judged to have succeeded. Whenever the
U.S.-led occupation of Iraq ends, it seems unlikely that a stable central
government capable of controlling the entire country will exist. Whether the
various Iraqi provinces are left with substantial autonomy or a general
Shiite-Sunni civil war commences, Iraq's border regions will remain
imperfectly controlled and al-Qaeda will maintain a presence there. In the
event of a civil war, moreover, al-Qaeda's possession of effective safe
havens would be assured. In that scenario, Iraq's greatly outnumbered Sunni
tribes would need to secure aid and manpower from any source available
and-even if reluctantly-would have to at least temporarily forget any
grievances they hold against bin Laden's organization.
In his December 29 statement, bin Laden displays confidence that al-Qaeda
has built a durable base in Iraq from which it can spread its influence,
organization and support for insurgent/terrorist operations to adjacent
nations. This is especially true regarding the Levant states. Bin Laden
speaks more frankly and ominously about Lebanon and Palestine now than he
ever has in the past, explicitly stating that al-Qaeda can and will seek to
champion the liberation of Palestine because Hezbollah and Hamas have
failed.
Hezbollah
Revoking the support al-Qaeda gave the Lebanese Hezbollah and its Secretary
General Hasan Nasrallah through Ayman al-Zawahiri's statement [2] during the
summer 2006 war with Israel, bin Laden now accuses Hezbollah of turning its
back on Palestine and doing the bidding of the United States and its agent
rulers in the Arab world. "The [Muslim] people have openly witnessed this
thing happening in Lebanon," bin Laden said.
Following the resounding [2006] speeches about [Muslim] pride and dignity
and about Palestine and its support, and following [Nasrallah's] challenge
that the entire world cannot impose its will on him, Resolution 1701 was
accepted, which was adopted by the United Nations, a U.S. tool. The core of
this resolution is the entry of Crusader armies into Lebanese territories.
Are people unaware that these armies are the other face of the U.S.-Zionist
alliance? Nonetheless, Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah is deceiving
people. He welcomed these armies in public and promised to facilitate their
mission even though he knows they were coming to protect the Jews and seal
off the borders in the face of the honest mujahideen.
Bin Laden concludes that Nasrallah acted in this manner "to accommodate the
wishes of the states that [were] backing him," preferring to protect his own
organization rather than make the necessary sacrifices in the struggle for
Palestine's freedom. Bin Laden describes Nasrallah's actions as hypocrisy
equal to those of the "traitors"-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Jordan's
King Hussein-who signed "treaties that stipulate the closure of [their
countries'] borders" in order to prevent the mujahideen from conducting
"operations against the Jews."
Hamas
As he did regarding Nasrallah, bin Laden accuses the leaders of Hamas of
"cooperating indirectly [with] America's agents in the region" and thereby
becoming one of the "parties and groups that are affiliated with [religious]
knowledge, [Islamic] call, and jihad to participate in this high treason
[against the Islamic community]." Some Hamas leaders, bin Laden says, were
successfully "tempted" by the "ruler of the land of the two holy mosques
[Saudi Arabia]," and thereby damaged their organization and betrayed the
Palestinian people.
The sane people [among Muslims] should learn a lesson from the fate of the
Hamas Movement's leadership. It relinquished its religion and did not
achieve worldly gains when it obeyed the ruler of Riyadh and others by
entering the national unity state and respecting the unjust international
charters.
Bin Laden wonders if "the honest ones in Hamas will change course," but
suggests it may be too late for the organization as a whole in the wake of
the recent multilateral conference held in Annapolis where, at the Saudis'
insistence, the Palestinians agreed to "sell Jerusalem, al-Aqsa Mosque, and
the blood of the martyrs" to please Washington and Israel. His assertion
that "honest ones" remain in Hamas, however, hints that al-Qaeda will be
looking to recruit Hamas members dissatisfied with the current status quo in
Palestine.
Enter al-Qaeda
After damning Hezbollah and Hamas, bin Laden unleashed a fierce attack on
the "agent [Arab] rulers," re-emphasizing that al-Qaeda and its allies are
"seeking to topple them and to refer them to the Islamic judiciary." In
particular, bin Laden explained, the Levant's Arab rulers must be destroyed
so that "the path to the broadest front for the liberation of Palestine" can
be constructed "through the lands under their control." Then, speaking not
only to Palestinians but to all Muslims, bin Laden declared in an
unprecedented manner that al-Qaeda intends to directly assist the
Palestinians in their struggle with Israel, and clearly implied that it has
the military capability to do so.
I assure our kinfolk in Palestine in particular that we will expand our
jihad, God willing, and we will not recognize the [Anglo-French] Sykes-Picot
[Treaty] borders or the rulers appointed by the colonialists. By God, we
have not forgotten you after the 9/11 events. Will anyone forget his own
family? . We will not recognize a state for the Jews, not even on one inch
of the land of Palestine, as did all the rulers of the Arabs when they
adopted the initiative of the ruler of Riyadh years ago. Nor will we respect
the international conventions recognizing the Zionist entity over the land
of Palestine, as the Hamas leadership did, or as stated by some Muslim
Brotherhood leaders. It will be a jihad for the liberation of all of
Palestine, from the river to the sea, God willing, joining hands with the
sincere mujahideen there from the cadres of Hamas and other factions, who
denounced their leaders for deviating from righteousness.
Bin Laden concludes by prescribing the same kind of martial reciprocity
against Israel and the Arab rulers that he called for when declaring war
against the United States. "Blood calls for more blood and demolishing calls
for further demolishing," bin Laden said and then promised-in a historically
evocative phrase for all Muslims-that al-Qaeda will fight alongside
Palestinians to "restore Hittin to us" [3].
What Next?
Past tends to be prologue with bin Laden: if he says al-Qaeda will do
something, the odds are it will be done. It seems prudent to assume,
therefore, that al-Qaeda's chief laid down a marker in his December
statement indicating that, at long last, his core organization has, from
safe havens in Iraq, built the ability to stage or support attacks in the
Levant states and, through them, against Israel. To be sure, bin Laden does
not promise major attacks are imminent; indeed, he stresses that the
mujahideen "are now busy fighting [the United States] and its agents,
especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Islamic Maghreb and Somalia." That
said, Israeli officials have claimed that al-Qaeda is now present in Gaza
and Lebanese officials have declared that al-Qaeda is tied to the Lebanese
Sunni militant group Fatah al-Islam. The media is suggesting that Fatah
al-Islam is responsible for the January 15 bombing of a U.S. Embassy vehicle
in northern Beirut [4]. If true, these claims mean that al-Qaeda is now
using a trans-Iraq highway capable of securely moving and then basing
fighters far to the west of the organization's traditional base in South
Asia.
Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He
served as the Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center
from 1996 to 1999. He is the once anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why
the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama
bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. Dr. Scheuer is a Senior
Fellow with The Jamestown Foundation.
Notes
1. Osama bin Laden, "The Way to Foil Plots," al-Sahab Media Production
Organization, December 29, 2007. All quotes from bin Laden in the text are
from this statement unless otherwise noted. The video is accessible at:
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8296133601473842530>.
2. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "The Zionist-Crusader Aggression on Gaza and Lebanon,"
al-Sahab Media Production Organization, July 28, 2006.
3. Hittin is the site of Saladin's final and decisive victory over the
Crusader forces in 1187 during the Second Crusade.
4. AFP, December 31, 2007; Sada al-Balad, January 13; Daily Star [Beirut],
January 17.
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