Making Sense of Jihad

M.I.A

Sorry for the lack of posting, but life has caught up with me for a while.  Back to regular blogging when I have some regular time to commit to it.

Too many dots to connect (expanded edition)

Cross-posted at Current Intelligence

The Christmas Day attack has exposed a broader systemic failure in the entire post-9/11 approach to intelligence: the “over collection” of information. It is leading, once again, to an ever-expanding bureaucracy of stovepiped analysts disconnected from real threat activity.  In one of many cringe-inducing situations since 12/25, the Skeptical Bureaucrat recently highlighted this painful exchange between "senior State Department officials" and the press during a briefing following the release of the Department's Security Review of the Christmas Day attack

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: -- the interview. As far as being anything else, no, I don’t think there was – I don’t think the not knowing that he didn’t have a visa, not reporting that – and the report says that. It says: “A determination to revoke his visa, however, would have only occurred if there had been a successful integration of the intelligence by the CT community, resulting in his being watch-listed.” So --

QUESTION: So even if he was he was spelled – even if it was spelled right and you knew he had a visa, he still wouldn’t have been – it still wouldn’t have been revoked?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s correct.

There is more Q&A here, but the exchange gives you an idea of the complexity of the failure.  Numerous embarrassing anecdotes leaked over the past two months -- from a CIA analyst waiting on a picture to some $12/hr contractor "misspelling" Abumutallab's name – expose an ungovernable system devoid of imagination and will.    

Marc Ambinder noted that within the intelligence community (IC),

There had been plenty of discussions about Yemen, and the U.S. was clearly concerned about the fertile soil there for extremism -- but no policy maker seems to have taken the intelligence about AQAP's intentions seriously enough to significantly alter counterterrorism policies regarding AQAP's ability to threaten the U.S

That, however, is always the failure when an intelligence failure occurs, in the United States or in any country in the world. Bureaucratic, moribound intelligence organs focusing on major threats (USSR, Israel), fail to see the emerging threats in front of them (Hizbullah, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya). Even the suggested solutions appear to be conventional: better training, more information sharing, the application of “structured methods,” etc.

Yet a broader problem is hinted at in this January 27th post at Govexec.com:

The National Counterterrorism Center does not have enough analysts to comb through the thousands of pieces of terrorism-related information it receives every day, even though a plan to cut millions of dollars from its budget has been reversed, NCTC Director Michael Leiter told House lawmakers on Wednesday… Each day, the NCTC receives more than 5,000 pieces of terrorist-related information and reviews 5,000 names of suspected terrorists, Leiter said.

There is a broader systemic failure in the entire post-9/11 approach to intelligence: the over-collection of information. In the rush to find and “connect” dots after 9-11, the focus of information collection became too broad, encompassing too many sources, and offering little direct authority for possible response.  The result is disparate points of information get caught up in the cogs of bureaucratic processes disconnected from any reason to act. 

Information collection on such a vast scale – 5000 pieces of information per day, according to NCTC officials -- is a sign of systemic weakness.  It shows an inability to pinpoint current and emerging threats at their source, and to focus analytical capability at those known threats.  Instead, analysts sit a desk each working day, reading thousands of pieces of “information” that have little or no connection to real threat activity.  In this environment, conventional wisdom becomes the most intellectually expedient answer to policy maker’s demands.

The answer lies in redirecting collection toward real-world threats, not loose dots of information.  If we were better prepared in Yemen, then we would have never missed Abumutallab, regardless of how a $12/hr data entry clerk spelled his name. 
   
After September 11th, senior policy makers and bureaucrats feasted on an avalanche of executive-level attention and, more important, funding.  It was a brief moment in time when real reforms could have made the IC an effective defense against the United States’ myriad threats.  Instead, bureaucrats without real experience managing information were given money to expand collection based on personal whims and the inevitable interest in maintaining their pockets of power. 

The “one-stop shop” portal became a mantra of the IC. “Watchlists” were established, supposedly designed to be single-sources of information on all suspected threats.  None of this was ever designed to fix systemic problems, despite what the brochures said. Rather, it only added to the inevitable stovepiping of information. So many one-stop shop portals and single source databases were implemented that bureaucrats responsible for  “information sharing” began to demand integration of the portals.

This is where my experience as a library manager kicks in.  Information collection is, by nature, an expensive cost with few immediate or tangible benefits whether it is an oil company library or an analytical team in a ministry of energy.  One of the only means of adding sustaining value to information collection services is by promising subject specialization and service exclusivity.   In other words, offering quality versus quantity. 

Government bureaucrats, unskilled in the day-to-day work of research and information management, tend to see value in collecting more information, not better information.  They also tend to rely on complex technological solutions to support collection, rather than real-time command and control.  Bad idea.  Professional experience has shown me, at least, that human-based management is always more effective than IT solutions.  The failure of the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) is a case where a one-stop shop portal, based on an proven IT “solution,” failed to support its underlining mission. 

The powers that be are failing again to address the problem of achieving quality over quantity in collection and analysis. The govexec.com article goes on to report that the very points of weakness, such as unusable “watch list” databases, are expecting further expansion.  Do you feel safer?

Around the Web: 24 Inches and Counting Edition

That’s 24 inches of snow, folks -- lots and lots of snow.

The Current Intelligence Corner
Charli Carpenter’s blog, http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/
John Matthew Barlow’s blog: http://spatialitism.wordpress.com/
Tim Steven’s new ventures: http://ubiwar.com/2010/01/16/a-busy-week-and-a-new-venture/
Christopher Albon’s blog, http://conflicthealth.com/
For the entire impressive lineup of the Complex Terrain Lab, go here.

Finally!  Finally!  After years of terrible analysis and tedious talk, al-Qaida has finally realized its mythic connections to South American drug lords.  Yes, Virginia, there is a connection between al-Qaida and the narcoterrorists.

That didn’t take long!  Al-Qaida is a threat again.

Shocka!  Not really, Cesium sources are commonplace.  And al-Qaida’s interest in obtaining sources of lethal radioactivity is common knowledge. 

Leah has some old photos.

Apparently, the Pest has been visited by the Blonde Chick of Doom.  I’ll pray for him…or something.

Emerging cliche watch: they’re always “lonely treks” and “quiet, isolated” young men.

Oh, mon frere, here we go again.

Au revoir!

Where jihad and Clausewitz meet.

In the meantime, others of his ilk are busy creating a jihadi “prison narrative” for their compatriots building the “creds” essential for future leadership of the movement.
http://duaat.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/my-imprisonment/
http://www.feesabilillah.com/2010/02/what-its-like-part-2-by-tarek-mehanna.html
http://www.feesabilillah.com/2010/01/week-in-life-of-babar-ahmad-masjid.html

I think Rusty is on to something here, because when I typed “tawhed” and “muwahideen” in Arabic into Facebook, I may not have found al-Qaida Central’s @hugs list, but I did crack the door open into a world of sympathizers.

Ch-ch-changes
New blogs
http://onwarandwords.wordpress.com/
http://globalmbreport.com/
New addresses for old blogs
http://kingsofwar.org.uk/

Lots of ALL CAPS here, just in case you like reading your blogs like that.
http://reportingislaam.blogspot.com/

Elfarty
http://www.archive.org/details/elfarty

Jarret on the continuing importance of al-Suri

Anything interesting? http://islamicfiles.wordpress.com/

There’s more than just Sheikh Faisal, shakin’ it up in Kenya
http://muslimsinkenya.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/shaikh-abdul-hamid-kishk-on-said-qutb-english-translation/
http://muslimsinkenya.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/shaikh-abdul-hamid-kishk-on-said-qutb-english-translation/
http://www.warisboring.com/?p=3811

KSA’s continued low-key reforms

In Education
In the Religious Establishment

At Homeland Security Digital Library: "New Report Analyzes Muslim Perceptions"

Irresistible

Dumpster Diving

Some random links for a snowy day

At Archive<dot> org
http://www.archive.org/details/AlSuryEdarah
http://www.archive.org/details/ikhlasee
http://ia341330.us.archive.org/1/items/jadwal2_673/jadwal.html

At Scribd
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10979605/Mouhammad-Qotb
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3999459/Gaza
http://www.scribd.com/Northwaziristan-Shoora-Council/d/26243507
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25207906/Messge-of-Iamam-Zurqavee-to-Banihasan

Jihad Vault, Part II

Jihad:  The Forgotten Obligation

This second part of the Jihad Vault series, looks at Tamim al-Adnani's Jihad: The Forgotten Obligation.  An Soviet-Afghan-era sermon and essay that builds on the work of Abdullah Azzam in arguing that fighting the Soviets is fard ayn, or personally obligatory.  Adnani was the subject of an Azzam biography, The Lofty Mountain.  He is the fat guy in this post at Leah's blog, All Things Counterterrorism.

And includes this passage:

A further reason for this great virtue of spending time in Jihaad is that Allah Ta`ala has bought the Muslim lives and wealth in exchange for Jannah. This business transaction can only be fulfilled in the battlefield. Clearly a Muslim is so happy and pleased with transaction that he offers his life to Allah in the battlefield of Jihaad to become the buyer of Jannah. A Mujahid leaves everything behind in reaching the battlefield, where he continually faces death. He has given himself to Allah Ta`ala, in his march forth to the battlefield and this is the place where his chance of the acceptance of death is available. Taking all this into account it is as though he has given his life and he belongs to Allah Ta`ala. This clearly demonstrates the greatness of participating in Jihaad.

No need to host it here.  Adnani's work can be found all over the internet.

On the forums
http://www.alqimmah.net/archive/index.php?t-2029.html

On Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=332217565703&topic=12679
http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=317062590453&start=50&hash=a34646dcd97c6f8ade95ec16eef73c74

There's a hyperlinked version here
http://islam.worldofislam.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=119&Itemid=51&layout=default

Stored at the mirror site of the Harakat Mujahideen
http://www.2600.com/news/mirrors/harkatmujahideen/www.harkatulmujahideen.org/jihad/o-jihad.htm

Copies of the1988 audio can be heard at

Youtube (of course)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmmnF9I7gUE

And linked through this site (whatever it is)
http://www.homebusiness-1.com/home-business-videos/video/is8vv15qh04/Shaykh-Tameem-Al-Adnani-Jihad-The-Forgotten-Obligation-Part-1-8.html

And through a Turkish site
http://www.radyobakur.com/video.asp?v=is8vv15qh04&id=&search_query=shaykh-tameem-al-adnani--jihad--the-forgotten-obligation-part-1-8&page=1

It continues to inspire bloggers
http://ssjr05.blogspot.com/

A Silly Season of Conventional Wisdom

Last week President Obama noted that Bin Laden’s latest video was a sign of the group’s weakness.  Of course, former President Bush said the same thing for years.  To be fair, President Obama is simply echoing the current “Beltway” wisdom, embodied in the ironically named blog, Outside the Beltway:

Presuming that Osama is still alive and the tape is genuine, it’s quite interesting that he’s now reduced to bragging about horribly botched operations to bolster his credibility.

This post at Politics Daily is a good compilation of the profound analytical wisdom of the season:

The Associated Press quoted a senior U.S. intelligence official as saying there is "no evidence whatsoever" that bin Laden had any involvement in the bombing plot or even know about it in advance. Abdulmutallab told federal agents after his capture that he had been equipped with the explosives and trained by an al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinsula.

Predictions of al-Qaida’s decline come and go with the seasons, but there are so many horrible flaws in this “conventional wisdom” here that it’s hard to know where to start, but I’ll pick two:

1) It was a “failed” attack:

Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the failed bombing of a Northwest airliner on Christmas. That's not surprising, but what should be is that it took him nearly a month to do so. Either it took all of that time for news of the plan to reach him, or he's lying. And if he's lying, we need to consider that the man is completely irrelevant.

So op sec can't explain it, Bob? Really?  Bin Laden could just have easily known about the plot all along. It took a while for a messenger to reach him. He then had to compose a message, record it, and have the courier deliver the message to Al-Jazeera.  It was released along with another message to the American people.  Couldn't he have been doing a few media "appearances" simultaneously?

In reality it wasn’t a failed attack.  It was a wild success, and is probably a new inspiration for those working toward an even wilder success. A terrorist’s primary means of creating terror is to employ the element of surprise.  They do this by undermining an adversary’s defenses.  Ninety percent of al-Qaida’s operational planning against US targets consists of finding ways of defeating our defenses.  Defeating an adversary’s defenses is one way of “striking terror” their hearts even when no boom is heard. 

Al-Qaida broke through our defenses on December 25, 2009, and quite easily, by the way.  For Bin Laden and Zawahiri it was a spectacular success. 

2) Bin Laden (aka "al-Qaida central") had nothing to do with the plot, or as Max Fisher notes:

The Flight 253 attacker was guided by officials from the Yemen-based offshoot of al-Qaeda; experts have long presumed that bin Laden is either hiding out in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region or is in fact dead.

Why? Because it was perpetrated by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), supposedly a “largely independent” affiliate.  Really?  Largely independent?  What does that mean?  From the beginning AQAP has had direct and substantial connections to its central leadership.  Its founder - Yusuf al-Uyyeri – sought Zawahiri’s approval of a plot to set off a poison gas in the NYC subway in 2003.  It was a private audio by Zawahiri  -- asking for money -- found on an AQAP operative in Saudi Arabia in 2008.  AQAP is al-Qaida.

I wish I could end this rant on a positive note, but I see the Beltway conventional wisdom working its delusional magic in the face of a looming threat.  For a brief moment after 9-11, the Beltway wisdom was on the ball.  But 9-11 was a long, long time ago in Beltway years, and it's so much easier to just sleep.

Jihad Vault, Part I

The Battlefield:  The Safest Place on Earth

I've been asked many times to offer a list of essential works in the Salafist-Jihadist literature, or to compile a "Norton Anthology" of jihad.  It's a great idea, but it's easier said than done.  There's a lot that could be added to such an anthology.  The collection could change depending on the goal of the reading.  Should I focus on the military arts?  Strategy and doctrine? Intellectual foundations?  Historical documents?  Also, what about the softer, fluffier radicalism of the Ikhwan?  Do they have a place in the "Norton Anthology of Radical Islamic Literature"? What about multi-media?  Should the book include a CD? 

Rather than rack my brain over something that is clearly above my pay grade, I decided to dedicate a few posts to Salafist-jihadi texts that emphasize the movement's spiritualism.  It is, after all, a religious movement, and much of its media contains the elements of religion.  Sadly, this aspect of the movement is rarely discussed.  First, because the Western analysts who study the movement have never been trained to think with religion. Second, it is difficult to accurately discuss a religious practice that is not your own.  You run the risk of being inaccurate, or worse, insensitive.  And third, I think that secular analysis simply rejects religious justifications for actions.  Instead it prefers to base assumptions and conclusions on the conceit of objectivity allegedly found in more scientific approaches -- the much beloved "models" of Sageman or Pape.  And so a good 80 % of the Salafist-jihadi media is ignored as so much irrational gobbledygook. 

The first spiritual work I decided to share is The Battlefield:  The Safest Place on Earth.  Written by one Amir Sulaymaan, Battlefield was distributed through the At-Tibyan network in 2004-2005.  I know nothing about this personality, besides his name and few texts I've seen on the internet.  However, in a little less than 8 pages, Battlefield makes the common argument that violent jihad offers its practitioners multiple, spiritual benefits that regular life simply can't provide. Sulaymaan's work is essentially an argument for leading a liminal life of self-sacrifice and poverty for a greater good. 

Here is an excerpt:

The reason why Jihad of the battlefield is greater is because it contains the Jihad of self as well of the Jihad of the battlefield and they must be fought simultaneously. The Mujahid will have to fight his desires while he also fights his physical enemies. The Mujahid will sleep little and eat less. His meals will be the plainer than the meals of our domestic animals. He will pray where he can be shot and rest where he can be slain. He will trust in Allah, rely on his brothers and find safety in fear. He will fight the shaytan whose whisper will instructs the Mujahid to flee from the battlefield and to return home to the temporal, deceptive, and measely luxuries of this life. He will remember Allah most often because he will become acquainted with death like an owl is acquainted with night. He will look down at any portion of the Earth and see his grave. He will call on Allah until there is no more breath to call with and the angel of Death escorts him to the gates of Paradise. Anyone with even a vague shadow of understanding will see that the Jihad of the battlefield includes the Jihad of self and its difficulty is compounded. Allah says (what has been translated as)


"Those who believed (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism) and emigrated and strove hard and fought in Allah's Cause with their wealth and their lives are far higher in degree with Allah. They are the successful." (9:20)


The Jihad of the Battlefield is an essential part of our deen. There must always be men of our Ummah who will enjoin the right and forbid the wrong. There are six things sacred for the Muslims that must be protected at all cost


1) their blood (life)


2) their wealth


3) their honor


4) their intellect


5) their lineage


6) their deen.

Rather than host it here, I decided to have some online jihadis do the work for me.  You can find the full text  here:
http://www.lightuponlight.com/islam/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=466
Here:
http://m.esnips.com/nsdoc/19fe9d26-c1f0-4e7a-aa91-25b77ce70c6d/The%20Battlefield%20-%20the%20Safest%20place%20on%20earth.pdf
And is linked here:
http://digg.com/educational/The_Battlefield_The_safest_place_on_Earth

This UK-based online bookstore offers the full text of another Sulaymaan work, "An Offer to those who Hate Death":
http://www.maktabah.net/store/Products/ViewProductDetails.aspx?CategoryID=2&ProductID=28473&ID=0

Similarly, this UK-based online bookstore purports to supply copies of other Sulaymaan works, but I don't see any listed: http://www.as-sabeel.net

Another Look

Daveed makes a good point in his recent critique of Jessica Stern's Washington Post op-ed:

Stern also writes that in Europe, "second- and third-generation Muslim youths are rebelling against what they consider the culturally contaminated Islam that their parents practice" -- but claims that this is not evidence of their religious zealotry because "the form of Islam they turn to is often highly unorthodox." Yet this is a terrible metric to use to assess religious zealotry, for two reasons. First, "Islamic orthodoxy" is not a meaningful distinguishing factor for those (like Stern) who lack a background in studying Islamic law and thus cannot define what Islamic orthodoxy is. Second, a person's religious zealotry is not related to whether his religious interpretation is orthodox. One can be zealous about an unorthodox interpretation of a faith.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2010/01/is_the_importance_of_terrorist.php#ixzz0d1VNu0qL

Our Elusive Radicals

Over at Current Intelligence, I take up the topic of Northern Virginia once again.  It's a little post inspired by Northern Virginia's ethno-cultural landscape.

Around the Web: "Intelligence Failure" Edition

These past few weeks have seen an avalanche of annoying second guessers, awkward mea culpas and an insidious slow-bleed of embarrassing information on bureaucratic missteps preceding AQAP's failed operation against Flight 253.  If you google "intelligence failure" at google news you can see how this is playing out in the American media.  Not pretty.

The poor folks at Waq-al-Waq have been paddling upstream against a current of idiocies.  They deserve a round of applause.

My favorite report of the Flight 253 cycle comes via FoxNews.  Is it accurate?  I have no idea.  Is it plausible?  Oh, hell, yes!

In the end, it was the usual bureaucratic nonsense that happen here, not a failure of "proper analysis" (whatever that is).

Lost in the cacophony of Flight 253 hysterics, was a recent Playboy article that explores another massive intelligence failure, albeit a woefully under-covered intelligence failure.  Back in December 2003 the entire IC was jacked up on a perplexing threat.  I can remember various high-level meetings and briefings, and a general sense of doom around the office.  Well, Playboy Magazine, has an article on the massive intelligence failure that precipitated that moronic slip into hysterics. Warning: it is a Playboy article and probably won't make it past employer internet filters.  Open it at home.

For a good laugh, read the last sentence.

No!  You don't say!

This DHS response is rather lame...But we can always track 2010's terrorist events with our very own Counterterrorism daily planner.

In the end, our radicals will continue to whine about counterterrorism policies and efforts, regardless of who is president and how many speeches they make...

Like this: http://umarlee.com/2010/01/04/thoughts-on-the-underwear-bomber-and-the-aftermath/

Or this low-key but surprisingly unseemly post about assassinating President Obama
http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2010/01/obama-disappoints-again.html

"Eight years into the war in Afghanistan," Flynn writes, "the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall

In a related, if under-reported, story:  the December publication of a stinging report on the state of our intel capabilities in Afghanistan by Major General Flynn, et al, has caused a bit of a fuss in the blogoshere.

Mike -- aka my boss at Current Intelligence -- makes a good point about the dangers of COINophilia.

Defense strategy is not my game, but can I make a suggestion?  The floundering Afghan strategy may also be a symptom of another failure.  If I'm not mistaken, preparing for two simultaneous wars was a strategic imperative of 90s-era Pentagon policy.  Well, 2001-present has seen just such a situation, but we've been woefully unable to balance the two.  What happened to the two-war strategy?

Let Me Be the First to Say It

Well, probably not "the first" per se, but here you go:

Kenya has a problem.  A really big problem.  And that is not good.

The arrest of Sheikh al-Faisal  (more here) by Kenyan authorities on Christmas Eve and the subsequent protests have brought to light the presence of Kenyan's very own Salafist-jihadis.  Al-Qaida has been operating there for at least two decades, and al-Shabaab must have fund-raising cells and wealthy and well-connected sympathizers among Kenya's enormous Somali expat and refugee community.  However, the character and extent of Kenya's native Salafist-jihadi presence is unknown and ignored for the most part.  However, the possibility of its spread must be considered a legitimate strategic threat in the region.

Kenya is sort of a strategic buffer stalling Shabaab-style Salafist-Jihadism's spread into Eastern, Sub-Saharan Africa.  If that community of al-Faisal admirers grows, it could spread throughout the region, giving al-Qaida a future in a region they currently have no "present." 

For the radicals' take on al-Faisal's arrest, start here:

http://muslimsinkenya.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/protests-in-kenya-as-muslims-vent-anger-over-cleric’s-deportation/

http://muslimsinkenya.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/sh-abdullah-feisla-al-jamaiki-being-held-by-the-kenyan-police/

http://forums.islamicawakening.com/f18/shaikh-faisal-arrested-kenya-32079/

http://revolutionmuslim.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2413:qpolice-seize-jamaican-muslim-clericq&catid=11:revolutionary-media&Itemid=15

A Second Look

The most popular post on MSJ by far is the series I did on Hassan al-Banna's On Jihad.  Few days go by where I don't see a bread crumb from a social bookmarking site, a wikipedia page, or a google hit. 

Might I suggest my other al-Banna work: Toward the Light.  I know everyone is interested in "jihad," but for al-Banna, jihad had a reason.  That reason was -- and continues to be -- the creation of an Islamic state.  Toward the Light is al-Banna's treatise on good Islamic governance.  It describes the end-game of their jihad, and worth reading if only to understand the reason why they fought then and why they're fighting now.

Good Question

"Est-ce que Mouhammad Qotb a des erreurs dans la Aquida?"

Available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/10979605/Mouhammad-Qotb

First Note on Flickr

Being a curious information gatherer, I decided to throw a few choice words at flickr and see what came up.  Not much in my estimation, but some readers may be able to exploit the site with more skill:

tawhed

which leads you to this photostream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/45874274@N07/ and this one, http://www.flickr.com/photos/35421835@N06/

aqsa

And the obvious:

jehad