Making Sense of Jihad

A Tunisian Vignette

In October, Marianne, a French weekly, reported on the existence of two training camps in Tunisia and little government interest  in addressing the issue.  The Tunisian government denied the report.  I found a translation of the original article, excerpted below.

Meanwhile this is causing nightmares to the great Algerian neighbor. In Algiers, the border with Tunisia has become a matter of great concern. Within the space of a few weeks, two major operations have highlighted the scale of the danger. A major jihadist network from Tunisia was dismantled at Annaba. Near Tebessa, the Algerian security forces apparently found ground-to-air missiles from Libya, having passed via Tunisia, where jihadis no longer even bother to conceal themselves.

For instance, an incredible carnival of God's warriors was held in Kairouan, under Abou lyad's auspices. This man used to be one of Bin Ladin's lieutenants and organized the attack on Commander Masud in Afghanistan. He was identified recently during the attack on the US Embassy in Tunis. At Kairouan, this man convened members of Ansar Al-Charia, his jihadist group formed in 2011.  Several thousand men came from all over the country, most of them youngsters, dressed in Afghan style, with white qamis (long robes) or jeans, T-shirts, and designer trainers. The flag of the Islamic caliphate flew triumphantly, while Mokhta Jebali, president of the Tunisian Front of Islamic Organizations, declared. "People fear jihadis because our enemies have destroyed our image. But, by definition, a Muslim is a jihadi. The Prophet was the greatest mujahid." The ecstatic crowd wanted only one thing -- to reach the assigned destinations for Tunisia's mujahedin, in the North and South, Watched by to a former Guantanamo detainee, 3,000 supporters of holy war chanted: "Obama, Obama, we are Usama!" This was the slogan shouted on 14 September during the attack on the US Embassy.

In order to show that the Tunisia's youth are ready to fight, the organizers held displays of "zamaktel tounsi," a Tunisian martial art, which can now be learned at Ansar Al-Charia camps. Youngsters were fascinated by the "combatants," with camouflaged faces, demonstrating it. The recruitment drive was underway. Out in the open. "Since Ben Ali's fall, we have experienced a euphoric mood, without worrying about the Salafists," one secular intellectual complained. "We despised them and never imagined that they could pose a danger to the country. Now, here they are, trained, armed, and gathered into militias." Obsessed with the huntfor members of the former regime, Tunisians refused to see that the radical Islamists were making headway.

The first warning sign may have come from reports of the death of Imad, the youngster from Bizert, near Benghazi, during the lighting against Al-Qadhafi’s regime. "At that time," we were told by Mounir, a architecture student, "we told ourselves that he was just a young man who had died for the sake of democracy, whereas these were in fact the beginnings of a jihadist international expected to fight wherever their chief demands."

Now not a week goes by without reports that a young Tunisian has died "a martyrs death" in Syria. Young jihadis start their training in Tunisia and go on to complete their combat raining in such lands of jihad as Syria, Mali, or Libya. One sign of the times is the fact that jihadis' families are no longer regarded with disapproval. Mounir noticed this when he went to offer his condolences following the death of a childhood friend "on God's path" in Aleppo: "this modest family, at one time socially marginalized, has gained a new status and is held up as an example."

No Answers

In April 2002, the FBI warned banks in northeastern states of a “physical attack”: 

"The United States government has received unsubstantiated information that unspecified terrorists are considering physical attacks against US financial institutions in the Northeast -- particularly banks -- as part of their campaign against US financial interests," the FBI said in a statement.

"While the FBI has no information about any specific plot or threats to any specific institution, out of an abundance of caution, an alert has been transmitted to law enforcement and to financial institutions."

It was the second warning of its kind made by federal officials this week. The first was prompted by an anonymous telephone call received Sunday from the Netherlands through Canada that later turned out to be a false alarm.

The alert focused on Washington and the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.

The FBI said the decision to issue the alert followed was made after if consultations with the Department of Justice, the Office of Homeland Security and the Treasury Department.

Attorney General John Ashcroft explained the US government was not asking the banks to close, or urging people to stay away from them.

"We are alerting law enforcement, financial institutions, and the American people to be vigilant, and to be aware of anything that appears suspicious," he said in a statement. The attorney general said he was not aware of any specific threat to any specific financial institution.

But he pointed out that during the war against terrorism, the United States had developed numerous sources of new information and was constantly analyzing and assessing intelligence received from them.

Ashcroft did not disclose what theses sources of new information were.

But a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the information that prompted the warning came in part from Abu Zubaydah, the suspected chief of al Qaeda operations, who was captured in Pakistan and turned over to US authorities earlier this month.

The official emphasized, however, that the FBI was accurate in qualifying the information it had received was unsubstantiated.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week Zubaydah was "a fountain of knowledge" about al-Qaeda's operations.

Following the warning, a local news station sent a reporter into the branch office of a regional bank on K Street and interviewed the manager about the warning. That warning, like so many to follow, faded into memory. Except, perhaps, for the branch manager who had his 20 seconds of local fame, thanks in part to Abu Zubaydah.  

Then in July 2004, Pakistan arrested Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani outside of Rawalpindi, along with 15 other suspects “from Africa.” Along with the suspects, came the requisite laptops and portable drives.  Soon after the arrest, authorities recovered reconnaissance reports that made it clear that al-Qaida possessed a well-developed plot to attack “banks.”  Not your local branch, however, but major financial institutions like the World Bank. 

The Guardian reported at the time:

"This was a planning proposal in the pre-operation phase, including surveillance and plans for attacking. It was typical of a group-level operation that needs to be approved at Bin Laden's level," the source said. It is unclear whether these attacks had been approved.

The buildings apparently named as targets were the Citigroup Centre and the Stock Exchange in New York, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington, and Prudential Financial's headquarters in Newark. Police in each city were searching cars and lorries approaching the buildings yesterday. In New York, the Holland tunnel, leading to Manhattan's financial district, was closed to heavy commercial vehicles.

US intelligence officials quoted in the US press say the new information shows that scouting had been done to identify security in and around these buildings; the best places for reconnaissance; how to make contact with employees who work in the buildings; traffic patterns; and locations of hospitals and police departments.

Some of the reconnaissance was extremely detailed, even including the number of pedestrians who walked past on each side of the street in a minute. Reconnaissance is thought to have been carried out over several years, both before and after the attacks of September 11 2001.

A US intelligence official told the Guardian yesterday the new information provided a "remarkable level of clarity" about al-Qaida operations.

The official, speaking anonymously, said that the new intelligence included "extensive information about activities that have taken place - about the casing and surveillance of the targets, their vulnerabilities and perceived vulnerabilities, the optimal ways to carry out an attack and to bring down buildings, types of security personnel ... it's very detailed."

The intelligence official added: "The indications are that has been a very longstanding effort on the part of al-Qaida. It dated to before September 11, and probably continues to this day."

US officials, quoted in the Washington Post, said that al-Qaida scouts had found that one of the buildings being cased had three male security guards but that only one carried a weapon. "Getting up to the higher floors is not very difficult if you go there midweek, as I did," one of the scouts reported, according to the seized computer files.

The author of those reports? Dhiren Barot, aka Issa al-Hindi.  His audience? Khalid Sheik Mohammed.  Al-Hindi had UK citizenship, and perfect jihadi credentials. Trained and indoctrinated at LeT camps in Pakistan in the 1990s, he fought Indian troops in Kashmir.  He later move on to train in al-Qaida recruits in Afghanistan.  Al-Hindi traveled to the US, recorded extensive video of Stock Exchange buildings in New York City.  In 1998, Bharot wrote Army of Madinah in Kashmir, an auto-biographical account of his time with the LeT in Kashmir.  Al-Hindi was arrested in the UK in August 2004.

In al-Hindi, we see one of the strongest connections between LeT and AQ.  However, it's not the only one.  Piece together disparate plots from the US, UK and Australia, and a broader (if still unclear) picture hints at a long-term collaborative effort between the two groups.  LeT and AQ’s relationship pre-dates 9/11, and suggests a level of cooperation that could be the primary reason AQ survived after the loss of its safe haven in 2001.  I wonder if we even considered that contingency before or immediately after the Taliban fell.  

Between 2002 and 2008, there were numerous incidence where the open source line between LeT and AQ seemed to blur.  KSM dispatched Issa al-Hindi to America to scope out “banks.”  Sajid Mir sent Willie Brigitte to Australia.  Suspects in Operation Pendennis trained in LeT camps; Hamid Hayat trained in a “militant” camp  in Pakistan for an attack on "financial institutions" in the United States.  Were these AQ plots? LeT plots? Who was behind this seemingly ongoing effort to create havoc in major western cities?  Are they still active?

Were there any operational connections between the plots? Any shared strategy?  Shared resources?   There’s also this lingering question about Abu Zubaydah and his interrogators.  How much did he know about the Banks plot? Was he evading his interrogators in April 2002?  Did they misinterpret him?  Could we have uncovered it sooner?  I doubt there are ready answers to these questions.  However, the disparity between what we knew in 2002 and what we discovered in 2004 will always bother me.  It represents a dangerous gap in knowledge that may have led to an major terrorist attack had it not been for Ghailani's arrest.  

Despite billions of dollars thrown at our intelligence community, we're still relying on luck.

Around the Web

What wrong with this headline? [Answer below]

Welcome to the club.  Three new blogs of interest:

Waq al-Waq
Islam in China, and its promising related website: http://islaminchina.info/)
Maghreb Politics Review

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross asks a good question:  Will Afghanistan awake?

Did AQIM recently issue a fatwa on the legitimacy of attacking army suppliers? It's not clear from the CBS News blog post.  It reads like they're describing a fatwa.

Zero Intelligence Agents has an interesting post on how the IC policy-sausage is being remade. 

Ubi has a new article: ‘Cyberspace and Security: Issues and Concerns.’ Congratulations, dude.

KOW looks at "The Coming Swarm."

Reading this Thomas Hegghammer review of a French language study of the current of Apocryphal theology in Islam, I was reminded of a particular columnist's hilarious jab at "Kyoto cultists:" that the problem with said global warming fanatics is that the "end of the world's nighness is never quite nigh enough." I think that could be said for most millenarians. 

Hegghammer has also been busy browsing the periodicals section of the jihad and recently brought us an update.

In other book reviews, there's a look at a little known attempt at an African caliphate: http://ibnayyub.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/the-african-caliphate/

And speaking of periodicals:

Al-Aqsa Journal (autumn 2007): http://www.scribd.com/doc/2742257/ALAQSA-JOURNAL-ON-PALESTINE-Autumn-2007

Al-Aqsa Magazine: http://www.scribd.com/doc/414559/AlAqsa-MAgazine

In another part of the Scribd universe, Azzam speaks to the "yutes" of the world
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12704461/A-Message-to-Every-Youth-Abdullah-Azzam

In Rome, a move to isolate radicals.

Of course they do. One of them is using it as a footrest in the safe house rec room.  It's by the new HDTV and the Wii Fit. (via the Pest, http://revolution.thabaat.net/?p=904)

An assessment of the recent policy changes in Saudi Arabia, at Crossroads Arabia.

Is this jihadi "propaganda" or is this dawah?  http://www.55a.net/firas/arabic/index.php.  You decide.

Londonstani takes a stab at the jihadi "life cycle."

What's most disturbing aspect of this image?  yeah, you guessed it:  it's the chunky clear plastic bracelets. 

When in doubt, get them on immigration.  Note, too, that the report includes the usual: "but they were such a quite family, kept to themselves, seemed normal" quote from the neighbors.

In the OSINT corner

The European Library gets an update

Twitter is tedious, I'm not a fan.  but Roderick Jones has a point about its value in information dissemination.

Don't laugh, I agree with Secrecy News about something:

In a recent meeting with the Director of CIA Information Management Services, we reiterated our view that all unclassified, non-copyrighted publications of the Open Source Center (which is managed by CIA) should be made freely available to the public.

Oh, and that BBC News piece: The "schism" that that say is "evolving" in Pakistan has actually been around for, oh, about 1500 years.  You can't have "sectarians" until you have schism.  Shouldn't the Brits know something about this?

The Known Unknown

This was just posted to -- where else? ---

http://www.archive.org/details/Jihad-in-Turkistan-Middle

It's an old video, but the online jihadi who posted it to share amongst his forum friends probably did the unintended service of reminding us of the continuing jihad in Western China.  Uighurs represent a sizable portion of the foreign jihadis picked up or killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan (there were numerous ones profiled in the jihadi hagiography, Martyrs in a Time of Alienation)

Regardless of how "well" things are going for the jihad in Western China, I think it's safe to say that we have no idea how it's going.  The Communist Chinese government is never going to honestly report on it, and there are few, if any, independent journalists working the region.  Practically all the open source analysis I've seen on jihad activity in the region relies on official Chinese government news sources.  Notice how there haven't been any reports of arrests or thwarted plots since the Olympics? Any analyst-- government or otherwise -- who relies on these "news" reports must be met with a kind nod of the head and a whole lot of skepticism.

There are a few "slice of life" blogs about Western China, and they give you a general idea about the state of life in the region, but these are not bloggers looking for or reporting on conflict.  There are none.

http://www.thenewdominion.net/

http://china.notspecial.org/

Why Left?

Aaron linked to a report a while back that suggested a convergence of “public policy agenda” between radical Islamist and left-wing activist groups in the UK.  I recalled it today after seeing news that the UK is holding three on suspicion that they intended to use a left-wing NGO as cover to enter the Palestinian territories for the purpose of joining jihad: 

Three Islamist terror suspects who were arrested in northwest England on Friday night planned to leave the country under the cover of a humanitarian convoy to Gaza led by George Galloway, the maverick MP, senior police sources said.

The three suspects were among nine men arrested in a joint operation by police and MI5 while they were driving two vans on the M65 near Preston, Lancashire. Six were later released and three men, aged 26, 29 and 36, remained in custody last night.

The men had been under surveillance for some time as part of what police described as “an ongoing intelligence-led operation”. Although details of the surveillance remain unclear, one source said the men were believed to be planning a terrorist operation abroad.

The reports don’t say whose jihad they intended to join (Hamas? AQ? Hezbollah?), and how they came about the idea of using a Western NGOs in this way, but it certainly suggest the claims of convergence are more than just a think tank’s bias.

The report by Atma Singh for the UK think tank Middle East Strategic Information (MESI), “An Examination of the ‘Entryist’ Tactics of the Hamas Front Organisations and the Extreme Left in the UK Gaza Protests in London,” describes the relationship of what it calls “ two key controlling revolutionary organizations” recently involved in anti-Israeli protests in London.  Organizations such as Socialist Action and the Muslim Association of Britain, according to the article, employ the tactic of Entryism, described as:

a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits or take it over entirely.

And it appears the tactic has worked well for both groups:

These two non-state actors have been highly successful in using the Greater London Authority to pursue their goals, receiving both passive and active support for Hamas front organisations and anti-Israeli public policy positions during Ken Livingstone’s term as Mayor of London. This success has been used to further infiltrate the UK (in policy terms) and the police and security services (subverting anti-terrorism strategy and policy).

Singh notes that the entryist tactic comes from Trotskyite concept of “united front:”

a willingness to make temporary and very narrow political and limited objective-based alliances with wider social movements and political forces on an issue by issue campaigns basis.

Though the report does a good job characterizing the relationship between the two movements, it doesn’t touch on a crucial question: why Left and not Right?  As a short term tactic, aligning with leftist “peace” groups may be a smart move for radical Islamist front groups like Muslim Association of Britain, after all, both groups share (nearly) identical short term goals – an end to Israeli counter-Hamas efforts.  However, the report suggests the relationship runs deeper.  If the relationship does run deeper, then why?  

Is it possible that radical Islamists have an affinity with leftists and socialists?  If that was the case then we would see the convergence worldwide, and we don’t.  For example, MB protests in Egypt during the same period rarely, if ever, included leftist groups.  As a matter of fact, in the Middle East, the MB would probably more inclined to work with rival Islamist groups that they otherwise dominate in the West (see below). 

Is it just an isolated, short-term tactic to gain legitimacy for this one issue?  If so, then why are we seeing a similar convergence here in the US and even Canada?

There are other arguments, but the question of Why Left/Why Socialism remains.  I suspect it goes back to that near-perfect maxim: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  If conservative think tanks, academics, politicians, and policy wonks are their enemy, then they have a natural “friend” in leftist groups. I also suspect that the generally weakened state of much European conservatism leaves the leftist groups with more legitimacy, and are thus a richer target for infiltration.

I must give credit where it’s due: radical Islamists have no compunction with identifying and targeting their adversaries with both long-term and short-term tactics.  In this case, they appear to be piggybacking off the persistent, even natural, antagonism between “left” and “right” that has seeped into every aspect of political life in the West.

I’ll throw this suggestion out, as well.   Though radical Islamist groups (at least the US variety) share many of the social and cultural positions with conservative organizations here in the US, they have targeted the leftist organizations because those organizations tend to be a-religious.  On the other hand, conservative organizations in the US tend to declare a religious identity (mostly Christian or Jewish).  The leftist tendency toward a-religious identity gives the Islamist groups more freedom to be Islamist without coming up against pesky questions and possible prosetlyzing.

The London Times article linked above suggests that the weekend arrests were part of an ongoing investigation.  As a topic of discussion, the convergence of radical Left with radical Islam is just beginning.

-------------------
An aside

The report notes MAB’s dominance (at the expense of other Muslim groups) in the media and the public dialog:

MAB seeks to lead its market domain by innovation, takeovers, alliances and mergers in the political field of Middle East and Muslim politics in the UK, to use strategic economic terminology.  It has taken over Muslim organisations where it can. In 2005 it took over the North London Mosque from its competitor for the radical Islamist constituency in the UK, Abu Hamza and his firebrand extremism. It even used the Metropolitan Police to help in this task,[10] using highly sophisticated political tactics and manipulating state agencies to gain control over other organisations by portraying itself as moderate. It also exploits the disruption caused by its opponents for its own benefit. This sort of tactic has been made possible by building up the credibility of its work through a visible and active relationship with UK state actors.

MAB has differentiated itself from its competitors in Hizb ut Tahrir (HuT), which is now banned in the UK. Rather than putting itself in a position of opposition and conflict with such forces, MAB has learned from the tactics used by revolutionary socialist and extreme left organisations in the UK.

Apparently, the MAB, much like their US/Canadian counterparts, has come to dominate the media and cultural “battlespaces,” effectively silencing their competitors on either side (moderate Muslim groups and Salafist-Jihadists).  Amazingly, they achieved this not through thuggish tactics, but by having social institutions such as the media and government give them the legitimacy they need in order to thrive.  For a group that seeks the same end goal as Al Qaeda and Hizb ut Tahrir, they’ve been wildly successful at convincing outsiders that they’re different in substance from those other groups. 

A Hodgepodge of Articles and Reports

Consider this the blogging version of a stack browsing in a library's periodical room.

There's a new issue of the International Journal of Middle East Studies

The current issue of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism

The current issue of Journal of Palestine Studies
Including, "Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah (Part II)."

From recent issues of The Middle East Quarterly

Jemaah Islamiyah Adopts the Hezbollah Model: Assessing Hezbollah's Influence

Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition: Turkey's Islamist Danger

An Analysis of Al-Qa'ida's Worldview: Reciprocal Treatment or Religious Obligation?

The current issue of CTC's Sentinel

From the current issue of Terrorism and Political Violence

Canada (En)Counters Terrorism: U.S.-Canada Relations and Counter-terrorism Policy

Is Islamist Terrorism More Dangerous?: An Empirical Study of Group Ideology, Organization, and Goal Structure

From the past

Islam and communism : a conference sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the USSR at the Carnegie International Center, New York City, June 25, 1960 (1960)

From Scribd

Something called Chapter 4: Islamic Laws on War and Peace

And then there's

ISLAMIC RULINGS ON WARFARE - Youssef H. Aboul-Enein Sherifa Zuhur

Also of interest, the collection created by a student of Islamic banking

Via the US Army's School of Advanced Military Studies

Can the United States Defeat Radical Islam?
by Martin E. Hanratty, PhD

Around the Web

Great catch, Aaron:

It seems unlikely that this 3-D animation was prepared solely for the purpose of a propaganda video. More likely it was created for training purposes, and then re-used after the fact by as-Sahab.

Intelfusion had a wonderful post last week pointing out a recent spat of cyber attacks between Pakistan and India.  Of course, what's interesting to me is the fact that the targeted websites are energy-related but there is plenty of grist for numerous mills here.

Report of Interest:  Islamic Economics:  A Survey of the Literature.  Author: Asad Zaman; June 2008

Bill has the bad news and the really bad news out of Pakistan

Update: The state of Algeria (via Western Sahara Info)

What AQ is saying in Yemen.  Jane has more:

The accusations came in context of a warning that the Yemeni security forces were gearing up to target Mareb tribal leaders and social figures under the cover of al Qaeda.

Real power?

"Nobody knows."  This is the conclusion of a recent Jamestown article on al-Qaida in China. (via The Opposite End of China)

When it comes to Gaza, Zawahiri has been a one man fitna machine:

In this strike, he said, students would not attend school and workers would not go to work. Al-Zawahiri also called upon the ‘ulama of Al-Azhar to be independent again and to lead the ummah against the “Zionist-Crusader campaign.”

Not ready yet.  I've been remiss in linking to this article by Khalil al-Anani on the real challenges faced by violent Islamist groups that are seeking a "moderate" middle way:

The question of the possibility of assimilating Gamaa Islamiya aside, which is ultimately a government decision, there remain serious impediments to the movement's ability to work effectively within the Egyptian system. Foremost among these is its religious and political rhetoric. Although it has indeed placed its bitter legacy of violence behind it with its renunciation of recourse to force and its retraction of its sweeping condemnations of heresy, its religious discourse remains little different to conventional Salafi (ultra- fundamentalist) rhetoric, especially as pertains to rules of conduct, penal jurisprudence and jihad, with regard to which it derives most of its concepts and principles from ancient theological and juristic texts.

In OSINT news:  Interested in org theory? Try this list of magazines for "org-heads"

Drum roll, please: "Top 5 Intelligence Analysis Methods" part 1 and part 2 at  Sources and Methods.

Meanwhile,  Vroom vroom - honk!  As opposed to chirp, chirp.

Two (more) from MEMRI

• Islamist Websites Launch Online Campaign for General Strike in Egypt
• Report: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Discussed Attack on Algerian Parliament, Army COS, Ministers

I'm sure there's a little oud plucking somewhere for Hamas:

Over the past few weeks, Hamas's international financial support network suffered a series of setbacks, most notably the U.S. federal court conviction of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and five of its leaders on charges of providing material support to Hamas.

A land grab?  It's an interesting question, considering the complex shariah associated with these issues. Alas, the article ends on a note of delusion:

There is a hope too that if Muslims are allowed to become part of the urban landscape rather than hidden away there will be less risk of furtive fundamentalism.

Thar be pirate stories at the Washington Post, says Eaglespeak.

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba Thwarted Plots [ver 2]

We're finally receiving reliable information on the Mumbai attack, and it's clear that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) is the group responsible.  For many folks this may have been the first time they've heard of the group, but I've been studying thwarted plots since 2004, and in nearly every case there was some LeT connection.   Either the plotters trained in LeT camps, directed by LeT handlers, or LeT members.  Many of these failed plots shared elements seen in Mumbai.  It's as if LeT had been attempting Mumbai-like attacks for a long time.  After numerous attempts in the UK, Australia, and the US, they succeeded in India.  

Here's a list of the failed plots that included some connection to Let. I'm working from memory, folks. I'll write down what I can remember off the top of my head now, and return to this tomorrow (tomorrow's edits will be in green):

2000-2004, "Operation Crevice":  British Muslims -- most of Pakistani descent -- were arrested in early 2004 after plotting to bomb a dance club, a shopping mall, and other sites.  The cell also included a Canadian, Momin Khawaja and had connections with an American, Junaid Babar.

2000-2004, "Banks Plot":  Lead by AQ's emir in the UK - Issa al-Hindi -- the plot included targets in NYC's financial district, including a former Jewish center, financial institutions in Philadelphia and Washington, DC.  Al-Hindi's professional reconnaissance reports and videos of the intended targets were discovered after his arrest.  His time operating in Kashmir for LeT, also known as "The Army of Madinah," is immortalized in The Army of Madinah in Kashmir (see my study here).

2001-2003, Lodhi-Brigitte Plot.  An early Australian plot to target Australia's electric power grid and attack different sites around Sydney ended in November 2003 Australian officials arrested a French convert to Islam  -- Willie Brigitte -- who had received training in a Lashkar camp.  According to court records he was directed to go to Australia by an LeT handler and hook up with Faheem Lodhi. 

Also note that members of the Virginia Jihad Network testified at Faheem Lodhi's trial.

2002-2005, London 7/7: Four men bombed the London transportation systems.  Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed responsibility for the attacks.  At least one of the bombers -- Shehzad Tanweer -- attend LeT madrasa in Pakistan.

2003-2005, Lodi Case.  Hamid Hayat attends a LeT camp where he is trained to attack financial and government buildings.

2004-2006, "Operation Pendennis": 22 men were arrested in cells based in Melbourne (and Sydney) was plotting attacks on the Melbourne Stock Exchange and a train station among other targets including tourist sites in Sydney.  Several of the members had received training in an LeT camp.

2004-2006, "Airliner Plot:"  Members of the UK based cell plotting to detonate sophisticated liquid explosives on 10 jumbo airliners crossing the Atlantic were associated with "charitable" services in Kashmir. 

January 2008, Barcelona Case:  Spanish authorities arrest 14 people, most from the subcontinent in a plot that they described at the time as an attack like Madrid. "The detainees were part of a terrorist sleeper cell which was activated from Pakistan with the arrival in Spain of one of their members, who acted as liaison with the leadership of Al-Qaida, the report said."

This list wasn't meant to be comprehensive, only illustrative of LeT's oeprational persistance.  It's not just a "Kashmir" group, and it hasn't been for quite some time.  The questions now are: why? how? and who?  And my favorite: where does AQ end and LeT begin?

Around the Web

I'm working on a Mumbai post, but it's going to take a few days.  In the meantime, I would suggest you read my study of Dhiren Barot's (aka Issa al-Hindi) 1998 book, The Army of Madinah in Kashmir.  This is the memoir of an AQ emir's time fighting for Lashkar-e-Tayyiba in Kashmir.

A Free Prediction (and worth every penny of it):  In two years you're going to see package tours to Saudi Arabia and Iraq:

A group of 38 tourists from the US arrived in Tabuk Friday from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. The tourist trip has come as part of the ongoing cooperation of the Saudi Supreme Commission for Tourism and local tourism companies....The government passed a law in 2007 allowing domestic travel agencies to bring in foreign tours.

In OSINT news:  The power of distributed networks to share information was on display this past week in Mumbai.  Meanwhile, the power of distributed networks to absorb information and spit it out again was on display in NYC after a Belgian cabinet minister became the subject of a blogging bartender. 

Several professional librarians organizations have teamed up to develop something better than Google: 

While experts from three top library and information science institutions have begun a process that they promise will lead to a new search engine with a new infrastructure designed to emphasize authoritative content, the process is at very early stages yet.

In other OSINT news:  You can now Google the archive of Life magazine.  Lot's of images that may be new to you, including this of the Blind Sheikh, and other curiosities.

Thomas Barnett notices the "shift into Africa." Here's a question for those readers in the IC:  Are we ready for Africa?

Mr. Axe on the Good News and Bad News in Somalia:

That’s good news, for Islamists likely represent Somalia’s future. This year, two main Islamic groups have made steady gains in the country’s south, two years after they were driven from Mogadishu by a mixed army of Ethiopians, northern Somali militiamen and U.S. Special Forces.

Something from the Yeah, duh! files:  International hotels draw elites and terror threat (AP)

In a related link, center-right talk show host Hugh Hewitt links to some good advice for corporate CEOs who find their employees in the middle of a crisis.

Abu Muqawama has a lite reading list for the Christmas holidays.

I was going to post on the Salafist and Salafist/Jihadist response to the Mumbai attacks, but the Jawa folks beat me to it.  No need to reinvent the wheel.  Lest you think it's only The Pest's little following doing this, I saw other, more "mainstream," Salafist blogs, doing the same thing.  That said, I just don't think this is important enough to blog on.

New issue of Parameters (via Small Wars Journal)

"Saudi Interior Minister Appeals to Religious and Education Establishments to Fight Ideological Extremism in the Country" (Via MEMRI)

Also, a different type of campus radical.  Or is that a radical campus? You decide!

And last but not least, a new article:

Legal Safeguards in Egypt's Petroleum Concession Agreements
Author: Khatchadourian, Minas1
Source: Arab Law Quarterly, Volume 22, Number 4, 2008 , pp. 387-396(10)

Nesser's Dose of Reality

The question of the Internet's role in jihadi radicalization and "training," is thankfully still a source of study since initial claims of it being a "virtual training camp" have been slowly, but methodically, proven to be hype.  I can see a consensus forming around one of the major points of contention in the whole "virtual training camp" discussion.  That consensus tells us that the internet really isn't a virtual training camp at all, but rather a point of reference for further study for individuals attracted or belonging to the global jihad movement. 

In a study reported in a recent issue of Terrorism and Political Violence, Petter Nesser of the FFI's Terrorism Research Group notes

As for the assumptions about the importance of the Internet as a means to develop terrorist skills, my survey confirms that the Net has become a more important tool for the terrorists on many level...However, it appears to be misleading, or at least premature, to refer to the Internet as a "virtual training camp."  With one possible exception, I have not been able to find examples of terrorist cells that can be characterized as "virtual-only" in terms of developing operational capabilities.

The entire article is available in volume 20 of Terrorism and Political Violence, "How did Europe's Global Jihadis Obtain Training for their Militant Causes?"

First Issue

Al Qaida's affiliate in Somalia, the Mujahideen Youth Movement, has enough money, manpower, and internet access, to begin producing a periodical. 

Creating a "journal" doesn't take much in the way of any of those things, but as history has shown (ie, AQ's affiliates in KSA and Iraq) this is always a sign of improved logistics, capability, and operational security. 

Entitled "Millat Ibrahim" (Faith of Abraham), it probably takes the title from one of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi's work.

A posting announcing the journal can be found at the Clearinghouse: 

http://clearinghouse.infovlad.net/showthread.php?t=17386

Oddly enough,  it's also available at Archive, but that Archive links aren't listed in the Clearinghouse links

http://www.archive.org/details/Tabib-Almojahdeen8

And here is the metadata:

Tabib-Almojahdeen8العدد الاول من مجلة ابراهيمtextsopensourceMelat-Ibrahim-1
العدد الاول من مجلة ابراهيم

حركة شباب المجاهدين

شبكة الاخلاص

شبكة الحسبة 01:11:5120082008-10-04 01:11:512008-10-04 01:09:25Tabib-Almojahdeen@hotmail.com2008-10-04 01:14:11Tabib-AlmojahdeenAzerbaijanihttp://www.archive.org/details/Tabib-Almojahdeen8ark:/13960/t0ms3zf96

The Problem is...

You may be unaware of the situation in the Gulf of Aden, so let me fill you in:  it's chaos.  Somali pirates -- some no doubt affiliated with al-Qaida's HOA affiliate, Mujahideen Youth Movement (MYM)-- are in control of the waters off the coast of Africa between the Horn and Yemen. 

It's not jihad related, not yet anyway.  The pirates are undertaking kidnapping and ransom schemes, cargo theft, etc, in an effort to pull in cash.  The problem is, they're wildly successful.  I suspect that at least some of that cash soon will be financing al-Qaida's efforts in the HOA.  If AQ hasn't already establish training camps and dawah networks within Somalia, they will be if the money continues to flow in.

EagleSpeak has been doing an excellent job covering the now-daily reports of cargo-seizures, hostage-takings, K&R transactions, etc, including news of the Iranian "mystery ship." So is Galrahn at Information Dissemination.  OSINT is coming from many corners, with news of French commandos rescuing tourists,  pirates seizing Russian tanks bound for Kenya (the MV Faina), and more stories emerging almost every day.

The Russians are sending a frigate to the region.  According to Eagle1, the Malaysians are sending ships.  The French, Italians, and Spanish have all expressed interest in sending more ships, planes, etc.  However, the situation has been deteriorating for quite some time. Last week the US Navy suggested that merchant ships hire security services, much to Galrahn's chagrin:

I also find it very frustrating that last Thursday the Admirals stood in front of the American people in Durham and discussed in detail the role of naval power to protect the global system to insure the free flow of trade, and here we have a clear example of trade disruption on the seas and the US Navy basically tells ship owners they can't solve the problem.

The problem with this "it ain't our problem" approach is that eventually it will be our problem.  Flush with cash, al Qaida will strike the region again.  From a well-funded base in Somalia, it can project its power onto the Arabian Peninsula with ease.  I suspect that we're woefully unprepared to respond to any looming threat in Somalia.  What are our intel assets like?  Do we have any MYM insiders on the payroll?  I hope so.

AQ's next major plot targeting Gulf energy infrastructure may originate in the Horn, and we may never see it coming. 

Mixed Results

I came across a WNC translation (GMP20080919342002) about a week ago that I thought was interesting.  It's an example of the adversary -- in this case various "analysts" posting at a jihadi forum dissembling al-Qaida's recent fumble on the September 11th commemoration video -- and doing a mixed job of it.  Will at Jihadica has a great post on the original video problem if you need to get up to speed. Meanwhile,  the jihadi analysis collected here is demonstrative of the kind of material that usually passes on the forums:  a mixed bag of insights and stupidity, occasional lucid thought juxtaposed with amateurish editorializing.

Excerpt follows:

"Analyst Abu-Ubaydah al-Mutarabbis saw that delaying the release of the production was just an attempt of a drowning person: 'It has been observed lately and clearly that the media attack against the Al-Qa'ida Organization and its branches has escalated, even though the concentration has been on the strong front in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since this front enjoys a good moral and financial support for the mujahidin worldwide and because of its symbolic value in the global war between the arrogant crusader war and the jihad select group of the ummah (Muslim community).

"Just as this media concentration escalated, it was preceded by a clear escalation in the battlefield, through which the Bush Administration has been trying to realize a noticeable advancement on the ground with the hope that it can preserve some of its pride, which the mujahidin had tarnished.

"An Attempt During the Time That Is Left (for the US Administration)

"Our analyst sees that this is normal and that the motives are very obvious. The Bush era is about to end, and the wars on which the criminals of the White House had bet have gone out of their control in all the fronts, even though the Iraqi battlefield witnessed some 'visible' deterioration in favor of the Crusaders, the politicians of the White House and their soldiers know more than others that their 'advancement' is fragile and is built on a void. What they achieved has begun to collapse as a result of the attacks of the mujahidin and their stupidity and the hatred of the rejectionists (Shia).

"In short, it is an attempt and a last breath by the one who threatened and warned seven years a go to burn down the land of anyone who stands in the way of his 'global' war on Islam, trying to conclude his era with points in his favor and in favor of his party and his successor.

"It was an attempt to silence the mujahidin and to surpass their media attacks with hits that will paralyze their movement, even for a short period of time, the most important of which is September 11, the day on which the world anticipates statements, first from the jihad leaders, and the Crusader leaders. It is also the day on which the world evaluates the outcome of the ongoing war between the two parties.  Because most of those waiting were longing for the anticipated production, the content of which Al-Sahab was very good and professional in concealing, the worshippers of the cross decided to rob the mujahidin of this opportunity and to mute their voices by increasing the sounds of their shelling in Pakistan and Waziristan, and by carrying out spectacular moves in Iraq such as military campaigns and claims of withdrawal from the former 'strongholds' of the mujahidin to suggest to the world that the situation has changed in their favor in the various conflict regions and fields.

"Our analyst 'Al-Mutarabbis' believes that delaying the release of the production comes as part of a more comprehensive plan (in addition to attempting to silence the mujahidin), and that is to plant doubt in the involvement of the mujahidin in the Manhattan attacks. This issue might have been the most prominent headline in the media campaign lately against the mujahidin. 'I could hardly find one prominent media source that did not exaggerate the conspiracy theory and did not shed the light on it more. The purpose behind this is clear. The first reason is to say that the war, which the mujahidin consider as a conquest and a victory is nothing but a trick played by the Mossad and the CIA, and thus, you who are following the news, what did Al-Qa'ida achieve and what did it benefit since the beginning of the war?'

"Therefore these are two goals of the latest media pressure: silencing the mujahidin and preventing them from realizing a media victory, which they have been achieving for years, in return for giving the chance for the media to spread the conspiracy theory and exaggerate it.

"As for the question whether the knowledge of Al-Jazirah (TV) about the contents of the production played a role in disallowing it, the answer is definitely, though it is not the main reason. This is because I believe that the media attack was pre-planned, no matter what the contents of the production were. It is sufficient that it marks the attacks of New York and Washington, which in turn marks the day of the defeat of the American dignity and the victory of the jihadist genius. The contents of the production might have increased their determination to move forward with their plan.

I think we have a tendency to either creatively over play or condescendingly down play the adversary's capabilities.  There's the caricature of the all-powerful movement, of a networks of networks that has the ability to strike anywhere, anytime.  Worse, is the caricature of a movement of hapless amateurs.   In reality, it's a mixed bag of earnest fools, dreadful thugs, and the occasional brilliant mind.  As long as the latter are few and far between we should be successful.  However, I suspect that we are only one or two brilliant minds from a terrible terrorist attack. 

Changes

There are lots of changes going on here at MSJ.   

First, a new job.  I'm excited to announce that I am now a Senior Intelligence Analyst for Trinity Applied Strategies, a small, but growing risk management consulting firm located in Northern Virginia.  Along with the new position has come a pot of simmering new ideas on applied analysis.

Along with the new job is the obligatory disclaimer:  the comments and ideas on this blog do not reflect those of Trinity.  I will post a more formal disclaimer soon.  BTW:  the "Trinity" in the name comes from the site of the first nuclear bomb test in New Mexico.

Second, a new article.  I once again teamed with Professor Jack F. Williams on an article exploring the context, techniques, and implications of online jihad.  The article, "Manipulating and Hiding Terrorist Content on the Internet: Legal and Tradecraft Issues," is soon to be published in the SMU Science and Technology Law Review, but is available for download at Jack's "bepress.com" site.

If you haven't read our article in the May issue of the Sentinel you may want to begin there.

Third, a book review. I will have a review of Brynjar Lia's Architect of Global Jihad published in the first 2009 issue of Political Studies Review.  I'll have more information on availability when it gets closer to the publication date.

Chameleon

Will at Jihadica has posted a summary of an essay recently posted to Ekhlass forum,

Muhami al-Dawla (”Defender of the State”) has written an essay on Ekhlaas titled, “The Connection between the State of Islam and the Taliban is the Strategy of the ‘Chameleon.’”  His argument is that the Taliban’s recent successful surge in Afghanistan is the result of using “chameleon cells,” which are small, well-organized, armed bands that 1) blend into the population, 2) do not take orders from a commander, and 3) have penetrated the state security apparatus.

The analysis reminds me of an early jihadi article (or forum post) from 2004 that compared the mujahideen fighting Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan to the roving bands of Muslim fighters who fought the Crusaders.  While Saladin fought the Crusaders using traditional armies, the article said, there were roving fighters who attacked Europeans through harassment raids.  They were instrumental to Saladin's victory. 

I don't recall who wrote that or specifically where I saw it, but perhaps what Will saw is part of a longer dialog going on about historically informed tactics, not unlike the kind of tactics mentioned in Malik's Quranic Concept of War.

Mixed Feelings

I have mixed feelings about The Pest's posting of a call for English translations of jihadi magazines.  Rusty calls it treason.  And, yeah, it's treasonous.  But such an effort would become a boon to people like me who work in open source and produce analysis for private corporations.  The federal government translates a lot, if not all of this material, but most of it is not available to potential readers who could benefit, like corporate security managers and police officers, usually because the material is needlessly over-classified.

Upon deeper reflection it sounds like an OSINT intel boon. If Samir (aka The Pest) and his friends want to assist average Americans to understand them better, who am I to complain?

Thumb Drive from Hell

ABC News is reporting tonight that Aafia Siddique had a 1 GB thumb drive on her when she was caught, and that it included copies of e-mail communications between operational cells, possibly planning attacks.

"Dual Use"

Having spent some time in analyst "training" on WMDs, I was confident in my professional definition of "dual use."  That is, until I read this:

An inquiry by the London daily, The Sunday Times, revealed that the endangered Vervet monkeys had been sold to the Razi Vaccine & Serum Research Institute in Karaj, located 50 kilometres west of Tehran.  The monkeys, sold for 75 euros each, were reportedly used to test new vaccines, but suspicions arose when the Iranians reportedly bought monkeys that weighed only one and a half kilos. According to the monkey dealer, monkeys of this size cannot be used for that type of experiment.

Around the Web

Ubi has a request:  Case Sensitive Searching

Does anybody know how to conduct case-sensitive web searches?

Good question, man.  Commercial sources like Dialog permit this kind of searching, but web engines?  Perhaps one of my readers knows...

Cyber Warfare as Low Intensity Conflict

  A chart developed by CERIAS, via Selil Blog

Oh, brother!

Oh, BROTHER!

"Obedience to Islamic Law"

Will McCants translated an interesting Ekhlaas (forum) post of an example of what might be call al Qaida's rules of engagement (ROE).  It's obvious from the posting that AQ touts its "obedience to Islamic Law, even during warfare" as some thing that sets them apart.  Will's post is a perfect example of AQ's war doctrine in action.  They're clearly telling us what to study if we want to improve our knowledge of their doctrine.

A Cruise Ship Plot?

MaritimeTerrorism just made note of a Monday (UK time) newspaper report that MI6 had uncovered an Al Qaida plot to target British cruise ships in 2002.  I've never read the newspaper before, and can't vouch for the authenticity of the report,  but targeting cruise ships is perfectly within AQ's m.o. (they had a similar plot near operational in Turkey about three years ago), and within their capabilities (ie. USS The Sullivans and USS Cole).

Lessons in Jihad

Will at Jihadica translates and analyzes a recent effort at developing a jihad curriculum:

A blogger by the name of Shamil al-Baghdadi has created a curriculum titled “Method for Building the Personality of a Terrorist Mujahid.” The curriculum is divided into three parts: ideology, physical training, and ops. I’m only interested in the ideological bit, but those who are interested in the rest can easily find it on Shamil’s blog.

Shamil begins by explaining how to find a good recruit. First, you need to study the potential recruit before speaking freely with him. Make sure he is serious before approaching him or allowing him to approach you, even if he already knows about the aims and beliefs of the global Jihadi community.

Training is divided into three parts: Sharia, physical, and technical. Begin with the Sharia training

Ever since I read about Saif al-Adl's account of the "education" of Abu Mu'sab al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, I've collected these "curricula" where ever I could find them.  After all, analyzing the kind of information the enemy intends to pass on to new recruits is one good way of understanding his priorities.  It also supports the process of thinking with the enemy.  It should not be a surprise to you that they place a lot of emphasis on what we call "ideological" training, and what they would properly characterize as "jurisprudence" or "sharia."  For them, it's theological.

The list of books that make up the core of the ideological training would make a good study list for any CT analyst, S.O.F. or US citizen interested in how the enemy defines their jihad and their role in it.

Read the whole thing.

Thinking With the Enemy: Doctrine

A fascinating, multi-pronged dialog blossomed on the blogosphere last week (and continues).  The dialog can be split into two difference subject areas:  doctrine and communications.  This post is dedicated to doctrine.

Full disclosure:  I have a stake in this argument since my recent article (co-authored with professor Jack Williams) in the CTC's Sentinel is in part based on my own approach to understanding of the role doctrine plays in the threat to energy infrastructure.  In my last position working at DOE, I tracked AQ's activity associated with energy.  As I discuss in the article in December 2004 AQ made a dramatic break from a long-held policy of "benign neglect" on energy infrastructure.  I was unable to ascertain why this happened until February 2006. AQ operatives who took part in the Abqaiq attack posted a fatwa as part of their justifications for the attack.  The date of the fatwa (2004) fit in perfectly with the change in strategy. 

If the fatwa played a role, what kind of role did it play?  Exploring that answer led me to LTC Jospeh Myer's 06 article on SK Malik's Quranic Concept of War among other books on Islamic war doctrine and military history.  In a recent post Ray Ibrahim noted Myers' presentation at the recent ASMEA conference,  writing that

though military studies have traditionally valued and absorbed the texts of classical war doctrine—such as Clausewitz’s On War, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, even the exploits of Alexander the Great as recorded in Arrian and Plutarch—Islamic war doctrine, which is just as if not more textually grounded, is totally ignored.

He's right.  Will McCants at Jihadica challenged Ibrahim by arguing that

...he is wrong to argue that studying these doctrines helps us understand, much less anticipate, the actions of Jihadis.

And he goes on to give five reasons why.

Both men are right and wrong.  Ibrahim is right to note the importance of studying Islamic war doctrine.  McCants is right to note that this isn't everything.  Ibrahim unfortunately gets lost in the specifics of jurisprudence which amateurs (like myself) should always approach with caution.  McCants gets too caught up with conventional analytical assumptions like jihadi tradition is "contradictory."  So what if its contradictory?

Wrapped up in this dialog is the common analytical conceit that one can think like the enemy.  In the vast US military industrial complex this conceit manifests itself in enemy "data collection" and data mining tools and forensic psychology, etc.  The assumption is that if we just collect enough data on the enemy we'll be able to come up with guidelines for predicting his behavior or "psyching him out."   What's clear is that this approach works on the real-time battlefield and in law enforcement (a different kind of battlefield).   

However, in war energy targets are almost always strategic targets.   Strategy is far more imprecise, and it becomes nearly impossible to think like the enemy.  My approach then was to think with the enemy, to identify his sources of wisdom and inspiration and attempt to construct a parallel to his strategic methodology.

There's no better place to start than Malik's Quranic Concept of War and Dr. M. Hamidullah's Muslim Conduct of State.  Both men are respected in their command of Islamic jurisprudence.  Both men are seeking to reconcile contemporary Western ideas with a Salafi-Sunni Islam.  Both men are writing in English.  These are good reasons to take their work, and their thinking seriously even if it is not distinctly part of AQ's Salafist-Jihadist "current."

There also needs to be a distinction in the dialog between strategy and tactics.  Malik gives the reader a fantastic introduction to thinking through Islamic military strategy.  Hamidullah helps fill in some of the gaps.  However, tactics are different, and perhaps a better source to argue over is Poole's Tactics of the Crescent Moon.  It's one of the only comprehensive studies of Islamic military tactics in open source.

The Muslim Conduct of State

One of the essential sources of Islamic military doctrine is SK Malik's Quranic Concept of War.  Malik, a Pakistani brigadier general, wrote Concept in 1979.   Malik's work was deemed so significant that the Indian military use it to train their officers.  Joseph C. Myer's 2006 review of Concept in the military journal Parameters is an important introduction to this important work. 

As a part of my own research, I explored some of Malik's sources, listed in its bibliography.  One of those sources is Hamidullah's 1953 work The Muslim Concept of State.  I scanned several chapters of the book and made them available on my website.  However, a dawah site in Canada is working to make the entire book available, chapter by chapter.  Insha' allah.

I've linked both to my work and the "muslim-canada" site on the right. 

Getting Better All the Time

MEMRI recently published a report on current training and tactical information exchanged on jihadi forums.  Information that is improving in accuracy and lethality as time goes on:

A review of 50 messages on the Al-'Udda Wal-I'dad section of the Shabakat Al-Mujahideen Al-Elektroniyya forum (www.majahden.com ) indicated that 17 postings (34%) dealt with the manufacture of rockets, bombs, mines, and mortars; five postings (10%) contained instructions for using small arms such as assault rifles, sniper guns, and handguns; and three postings (6%) dealt with survival skills and with battle tactics and strategy. The remaining 25 messages (50%) contained links to online encyclopedias of weapons and warfare, and addressed a wide range of subjects, from poisons to secure communication techniques and information on the armies of Western countries.

To gauge the popularity of the various topics among the forum users, MEMRI monitored 50 postings on the Al-'Udda Wal-I'dad section of the Shabakat Al-Firdaws Al-Jihadiyya forum. We found that messages concerned with the construction of homemade rockets, bombs, mines, and mortars, and with the use of such weapons manufactured in the West, were viewed 3,750 times (66% of the viewings); postings dealing with small arms usage were viewed 397 times (7%); and postings on strategy, tactics, and survival were viewed 334 times (6%). A single posting dealing with WMDs was viewed 56 times (1%). The remaining messages, dealing with a wide range of topics and containing links to online weapons encyclopedias, were viewed 1,125 times (20%).

A crucial point is that the Al-'Udda Wal-I'dad sections are not merely archives of content on military topics, but are used as a virtual meeting place where the jihad fighters exchange information and obtain advice that is relevant to their ongoing terrorist activities.